


a worn out recording of a favourite song

by brokendrums



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-28 23:46:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 65,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums/pseuds/brokendrums
Summary: In the gap between the final legs of the OTRA tour, Harry’s trying to figure everything out. Niall’s gone strangely quiet, Liam and Louis are pushing for a final album, Harry’s got another house renovation to plan and Zayn’s suddenly back on the scene after disappearing out of their lives a few weeks ago.Set April - June 2015.





	a worn out recording of a favourite song

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Escape - Rupert Holmes.
> 
> aka the la verse. The bulk of this was written in the immediate aftermath of Zayn leaving the band but stalled once promo for MitAM and MoM started and more info came out about the break-up. I had dipped back into it now and again (and complained copiously about on tumblr -- shout out to the nonnies who I promised that this was coming out soonish...four years ago...) but I thought I may as well let it see the light of day. For that reason, some characterisation might be a little skewed. Please don't misconstrue this as being anti-Zayn in sentiment. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read versions of this many moons ago, there were many of you. I appreciate it.

| stoney ground |

Harry’s staring at the south-facing wall in the living room when the doorbell rings. It makes him jump, some of his coffee slapping out of his mug and onto the new hardwood floor.

“Fuck,” Harry murmurs, edging away from it. 

Normally, whoever has a key just lets themselves in, like Jeff and his housekeeper and his mum. He doesn’t have very many other uninvited visitors, not many where Harry’s not walking up the drive with them.

Harry frowns down at the puddle of coffee, watching as it soaks into the toe of his shoe -- is his floor level? -- when it goes again, echoing around the cavernous ground floor of his house now that he’s taken out that stud wall. 

His mum is still in England and his housekeeper has an odd way of sneaking up on him so he’s sure it isn’t her. He can’t remember where he’s placed the spare set, probably lying at the bottom of a bag somewhere halfway across the world with the rest of his luggage. 

It could be his neighbours? A little boy’s football kicked over the fence by accident or maybe someone out to sell him something like special leather seat covers for his car or a nice shiny watch from the inside of his coat that will break in three days. He’s been reading 50s Americana again in the lulls between soundcheck and stage and his brain’s half jet-lagged, half stuck in picket fence nostalgia. 

But he’s in LA, he has to remind himself. His neighbours to the right are all the way down a slope and Harry’s convinced they’re only there during holidays. Those to the left have recently moved out and, so far, the new occupants have been keeping a low profile behind the line of leafy Carolina Silverbell that edge along Harry’s garden. Harry’s nearly offended he hasn’t met them yet but then again, Harry’s only been home for two days himself and he’s spent the majority of them lying starfished in the middle of his bed with the lights off, so he might be getting a bit ahead of himself.

Harry’s trying to cycle through the mansions further down the road for any memorable children who might be up to no good when the doorbell rings again, a final long, tiring _burrrrr_ \-- as if his visitor had just pressed his thumb to it and kept it there. Harry sets down his mug and heads through the living room to the foyer. 

“Alright,” Harry gripes, opening the door sharply as the ringing cuts off. He’s stunned for a moment before he manages a slightly dumbfounded: “Hello.”

“Hi,” Niall says and there’s a hint of hesitation in his tone. 

Harry’s stomach goes tight. It’s only been a few days since he’s seen Niall but it feels like longer -- all that _stuff_ shoved to the back of his mind since he had got to LA. 

It jars for a moment, the feeling of pressing two freshly cut keys into Niall’s palm in the backseat of a car one balmy night months ago before the tour even started. 

“Hi,” Harry says again. “Sorry, hi. Come in.” He manages a smile and steps away from the door to let him into the house. “Forgot your key?”

Niall shrugs, looks a bit sheepish before his face goes blank again. “Didn’t want to be rude.”

“But sneaking through security gates is a-ok?”

“That’s what you get for having the code be your birthday.”

Touché. 

Harry bites his tongue on asking _what are you doing here?_ because that’s rude. But also because Niall doesn’t really need a reason and Harry doesn’t really care if he’s got one. He feels jittery -- unsettled that Niall’s appeared out of the blue -- but deep down, Harry’s ridiculously pleased to see him. 

Harry leads the way. He’s wearing loafer slipper things that he’s been sent in his last clothes bundle and they squeak as he walks, his feet gone sweaty under the soft leather. The sound is much more apparent as they wind their way through the house in ever-growing silence. Harry hadn’t noticed the noise before but with Niall’s quiet tread behind him, it seems much more obvious. 

Harry’s mouth feels very dry. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. 

“It, uh, looks good,” Niall says once they’ve reached the living room, his nose wrinkling with the smell of paint. 

Harry hums and goes back to staring at the wall. “Too beige?”

Harry’s still in two minds -- it might look too much like the foyer of a five-star hotel with all the chrome and marble. It’ll have to be changed if it keeps reminding him of their relentless tour schedule. 

Harry reaches for his coffee again. Maybe someday he’ll appreciate the memory.

Niall hums again as if he’s actually mulling it over. “Suits the room,” he finally says, waving a hand at the wall of windows that look out into the garden. The sun bleeds through the gauzy drapes and sends a stream of dreamy dappled light up the wall.

Niall’s house in London is painted entirely in wevet so Harry decides it’s a compliment. 

“Thank you,” Harry replies, finishing his coffee.

It feels oddly formal. Niall doesn’t normally come to his house in LA. In fact, they’re supposed to be on break and the last he had heard, Niall was trying to wrangle tickets to the Masters before he boarded his flight to London. 

The bridge of Niall’s nose looks red, the skin about to peel at the creases of his nostrils but that’s all Harry can assess because he finds himself glancing away when Niall catches him staring. What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Nice break?” Harry asks him instead, perching himself on the edge of the sofa. Niall’s still standing, his legs looking pink where they stick out of his shorts. He’s brought a bag with him and it’s hanging off his shoulder, slightly concave in a way that tells Harry it’s mostly empty. 

“You haven’t seen?” Niall asks, eyebrows shooting up his face. It’s the most genuine expression Harry’s seen since Niall entered the house. Harry shrugs, _seen what_?

Niall’s not smiling anyway but it’s not hard to see when his mouth downturns. 

“I went to Augusta,” Niall tells him but Harry can sense that isn’t what he’s annoyed about -- Niall could be anywhere in the world during their breaks, Harry knows Niall doesn’t expect him to keep tabs on him that way. 

He raises an eyebrow and Niall’s shoulders straighten, tight and tense. 

“Liam’s been talking about it nonstop in the group,” Niall explains in halting words. He’s not meeting Harry’s eyes and he can tell that Niall’s more annoyed about it than he’s used to letting on. Niall takes a steadying breath. “The _new_ group --”

“I’m on my LA phone,” Harry says and he catches the way Niall’s face twists. He feels a bit defensive. Niall should understand, he’d juggled his Irish and UK phone for two-plus years before he got tired of carrying around double all the time and just decided to pay the roaming. 

“Oh.” Niall nods. Harry can see him physically stop himself from saying something further. Niall’s lips press together and his chin wrinkles. It’s been ages since Harry’s seen Niall act like this -- closed off and bottled up. Harry had been so exhausted at the end of their last few shows that he hadn’t noticed but it looks like this has been building for days.

“Well,” Harry says, putting on a bright smile and opening his arms wide. “You’re here now.”

Harry reaches for him, pulls Niall into a tight hug before he can wriggle out of it. It resolves some of the uneasiness Harry’s been feeling since they met at the doorway without one. 

Harry’s mouth brushes the side of Niall’s face and he tries not to think too hard about the fact that Niall doesn’t turn into it like he had been expecting. He feels the moment that Niall relaxes though, his chest deflating as he sinks into Harry’s body. It’s jarring that the response wasn’t immediate or automatic.

Harry hugs him tighter, falls back until they’re sinking into the actual cushions of the sofa and not just the boney arm. “You alright?” Harry asks softly. It seems easier to be quieter, to hide his concern in a whisper to his temple so they don’t even have to look at each other.

Niall nods, sniffs a bit when he pulls away. He sounds blocked up, his throat dry. “Jetlag. Aircon. You know?”

Harry hums. He’s been blaming his lack of sleep on jetlag too but Harry thinks it might be sleeping in an empty bed every night, mind running away with his worries over Zayn that’s doing it. 

He suspects that Niall’s probably the same. 

“Do you want to go for a nap?” Harry asks him, only slightly worried over how sniffly Niall’s being near his shoulder. He’s still trying to pull away but Harry keeps his grip around Niall’s waist locked, his hands a bit sweaty with how tight he’s holding them together. “It’s still early.”

Harry’s just had his morning grapefruit whilst stretched out on the pool patio. Not a very taxing day in anybody’s book. 

Niall cocks his head. “Well, I did come straight from Augusta.”

Harry lets go of him gently, pulling his hands away from Niall’s waist and letting him stand up straight. He’s still got his bag slung over his shoulder and Harry wonders what he’s even got in it. 

Harry pulls himself up, tensing his abs. He needs to hit the gym again. “Go on,” Harry tells him, waving a hand towards the staircase. He keeps having to remind himself that Niall’s never been here to stay properly before -- just a fleeting night where the three of them had dinner around Harry’s coffee table and then a show. They had toppled into bed late and then hit the road again early the next day back when the tour felt never-ending. Harry thought it might have been nice to have a touch of home but it only made them late for bus-call. “Mine’s the one at the end.”

“I think I’d be able to work that one out by the state of the sheets,” Niall quips, his hand tightening around the strap of his bag. He’s half slumped into himself, shoulders rounded. Apart from the stripe of red across the ridges of his face, he’s pale too.

“Hey,” Harry retorts, sinking easily into that easy back and forth they always seemed to have. He doesn’t try very hard to sound offended. “They’ll be pristine.”

Niall snorts, his mouth turning up at last. “Wasn’t talking about that.” He’s got a soft look on his face like he can’t believe Harry said that. It breaks into something familiar, finally. “Dirty boy.” 

Harry grins at the ceiling. “Dirty _boy._”

Niall laughs, turning away towards the staircase. Harry watches him, Niall glancing back over his shoulder. A slice of the morning sun hits him then, just enough to make Niall squint. “You coming?”

Harry shouldn’t. He has things to do today. He was supposed to be being productive with his time off. He has a list of meetings and places to be, a Soulcycle regimen to pick up again.

But he didn’t get his full eight hours last night and Niall looks so soft in a jumper that is not spring-time-LA appropriate. There’s that hesitation back in Niall’s expression, in the way he holds himself at the bottom step, the careful look on his face. 

Harry stares at Niall’s half-empty bag so he doesn’t have to watch Niall start to pick nervously at his fingernails. It’s black with a fancy pattern you can only see in a certain light, Harry’s seen it someplace else before. They maybe got it free in a goodie-bag from some designer. It strikes Harry as something Niall wouldn’t have bought for himself. 

Harry thinks of Niall back in London before Harry had even landed in LA, tries to imagine him packing it. 

“Okay,” Harry says redundantly because Niall’s already started up the stairs, shoulders hunched, like he’s given up on Harry joining him, everything bottling up again.

Niall fits into Harry’s room perfectly. He drops his bag near the huge window and doesn’t take anything out of it, kicks his shoes beside it. Harry’s already pretty comfy in a pair of loose shorts so he climbs onto the bed, slides halfway into the middle. The duvet is still rumpled from when he got up earlier and didn’t make the bed. 

Niall’s denim shorts land near his shoes but he leaves the jumper on as he crawls into the other side. He fidgets a moment, shifting his legs and his hips and tugging at the sheets below him. 

He’s just wearing boxers and Harry can’t help but look down at him as he wriggles about, the waist of his underwear creeping low on his hip bones. Harry drags his eyes away, his mouth dry. 

They haven’t done anything for a while -- not since before. _Before_. Before with a capital B. 

They’d been a bit off-kilter, just the two of them suddenly when there used to be three. Niall had drawn into himself a bit more, slept in his own hotel room for the first time since Christmas and Harry hadn’t wanted to push, found himself at the gym at 3am more often than not. 

Harry doesn’t make any move to assume that now it’d be different. It’s only been a week or two but sometimes it feels like it’s months and months, so much happening since then. Their lives spread thin over a touring schedule and a myriad of panicked meetings squeezed in between soundcheck and showers. 

Sometimes Harry wakes up and it’ll feel like Friday when it’s only Tuesday. 

Sometimes, it feels like it hasn’t even happened at all. 

Harry shakes his head, tries to stop thinking about it. Tries focusing on the present. Focusing on Niall. Niall’s _here_ at least.

“I’m only staying a couple of days,” Niall tells him quietly, reaching for Harry’s wrist. His palm is warm and grip strong. 

Harry turns his head to the side, looks at the profile of Niall’s face. He’s staring at the ceiling, his eyes following the slow swoop of the fan. Harry shuffles closer, shifting until they’re hip to hip, their tangled hands squashed between them. He nudges his nose to the side of Niall’s neck, the soft wool of the jumper tickling at his mouth. “Okay.”

Niall sighs, the only sound in the room beyond the fan and Harry’s heartbeat. 

A few days is better than none. A few days is all they need.

*

Harry doesn’t wake until well into the afternoon, when the sun is high enough that it bores into his room and is starting to sink again. Everything looks too bright for a moment and he’s disorientated, confused by the slant of the sun whether it’s California or Cape Town, until Niall shifts beside him and Harry can blink away the bright spots. 

They’ve rolled over in their sleep -- Niall’s body sprawled out across the other side of the mattress but his face still pressed close, his mouth slack and breathing damply into Harry’s shoulder. It takes a moment for Harry to extricate himself, sweat gathering where they’ve been pressed together and caught in a tangle of sheets. He’s getting out of practice -- it’s only been a few weeks since he’s had to do it with two bodies, nevermind just one. 

He tries not to overthink why Niall is here. It’s the first longish break they’ve had in a while -- longer than the time they’d had off at Christmas -- bisecting the tour into that one woeful, seemingly never-ending trip through parts of beautiful Asia and hopefully a more optimistic Act II still to come. 

Niall had hugged him in the muggy heat of the runway in Dubai, his hair flat to his forehead from wearing his snapback all morning. He had looked still half-asleep as he’d slinked off to his plane with Louis back to London, leaving Harry to wait for his to LA. 

He hadn’t said, ‘see you after the weekend’ or even ‘see you soon.’ It was just a tight squeeze goodbye and a long look over his shoulder before he climbed the stairs to the jet. 

Harry hadn’t pushed him either, he was just happy to get through the last few shows, to keep his grin on his face and pretend that singing lyrics that didn’t belong to him wasn’t slowly chipping away at his insides. 

He’d been too happy to merely see a bed at the end of the day to complain that it was empty. Niall needed his space -- so did Harry in some respects. 

Zayn needed more space than they could give apparently. 

But Harry couldn’t help but feel happier -- if a little lost -- to have Niall back. 

“Just going out,” Harry tells him. Niall doesn’t stir and Harry doesn’t make him. It settles something inside him to say it anyway. He takes the chance to press his lips to Niall’s forehead. Niall’s bottom lip drops open further, the inside of it looking wet as he breathes through his mouth but he stays asleep. 

Harry could kiss him properly and Niall would probably never know. Harry swallows, pulling himself away. 

He doesn’t bother showering even though he feels a bit groggy after his nap. It’s nearly five, the entire day slipping away while he was in bed. 

He pulls on a shirt -- something plaid and soft that’s hiding between a preview of next season Gucci and an old leather jacket that he only wore once -- and a brimmed hat that usually makes Niall laugh when he sees it. 

He’s not that late -- some would call it fashionably -- but Jeff still rolls his eyes when he finally walks over the threshold. 

“You didn’t even make an effort,” Jeff tells him, the scolding in his tone only half genuine. Harry flashes a smile at him, tips his hat to Glenne to make her laugh. If he was wearing the proper boots he’d click his heels too. 

“I’m wearing a hat,” Harry tells him. “Some would call it jaunty.”

“Or pitiful,” Glenne comments, turning so her hair falls over her bare shoulder. The crowd is surprisingly dolled up for the time of day but then again, it is LA.

“Who has a gallery opening in the afternoon anyway?” Harry asks, shaking his head when a waiter appears at his elbow with a tray of fizzing champagne flutes. It’s still bright outside and the glasses glitter as he moves on through the crowd. 

Jeff raises his eyebrow and Harry shrugs. “I’ve the car.”

“Leave it,” Jeff tells him. “Come back with us.”

Harry shakes his head. “Have to get home.”

Jeff narrows his eyes but Harry knows it’s just so he doesn’t roll them again. “There’s going to be media here later. You should get your photo taken.”

“I know,” Harry tells him, trying to figure out why. He doesn’t think he needs any more attention. Jeff keeps going on about building a _presence_ in Los Angeles. Harry doesn’t really understand that bit either -- it’s just a place he lives sometimes. He won’t be back properly for months after this trip. 

Harry ignores the unexpected pang of disappointment that comes with that thought. 

“Go,” Jeff shoos him. He’s got an empty champagne flute in his hand and his glance over Harry’s shoulder tells him he’s looking for another. “Mingle.”

Harry laughs, edging away from him and into the crowd. 

The art is abstract. That’s all Harry can think to describe it. He’s still getting into the whole thing but he supposes he likes the colours and how they work together. Without Jeff and Glenne he feels a bit out of place, his faded red plaid standing out amongst the black silk and the leather-clad shoulders he brushes past. 

He does what he’s told and mingles, managing to find a bottle of water to shove under his armpit in case he needs something to fiddle with later. He smiles politely and talks about art with people who don’t know who he is and then dodges questions about tour with people who do. 

“So,” says a girl with blonde hair shorn at her shoulders and bright red lipstick. She’s wearing a hat that nearly matches Harry’s except it’s got a crisp black brim and doesn’t look like she’s sat on it. She fiddles with the straw in her drink -- a watered-down vodka and cranberry Harry suspects -- and tries too hard to be nonchalant. “How’s LA? Missing the band?”

Harry’s dealt with a lot of these questions lately but it’s the first from a complete stranger since Zayn’s gone. It dawns, belatedly, how sheltered their little bubble had been as tour drew to a close. The way she sets the question though, as if she has a right to talk to him like a friend, unsettles him.

“Uh,” Harry says, feeling slightly cotton-mouthed. “Of course. It’s nice to have a break but the road is fun too.”

It’s his stock answer -- politely excited about both options and no complaints. The girl smiles blandly, Harry stares at the sheen of her lipstick. There’s a faint line on the inside of her lip where she’s licked it all away. 

She laughs to herself. “Have to say, I wasn’t expecting it.” She shakes her head like she’s somehow disappointed. Like she has first-hand knowledge of the situation. Like she _knows_ them. Harry feels his hackles start to rise and tries to tamp it down. It’s just an innocent observation, he tells himself. “If anyone was going to break away, I would’ve said it would be you.”

Harry swallows but his mouth is too dry. He’s been expecting this sort of reaction but it’s still a slap in the face to hear it being put to him so bluntly. There’s a million things Harry could reply to her with -- anything from a simple _me too_ to _yeah, I was physically sick when I first realised Zayn wasn’t coming back_ \-- Harry smiles mildly at her and spares her the truth. “And here we are.”

It’s clearly not the reaction she’d been expecting and she frowns, buys some extra time by taking a sip of her drink as she appraises him. “It’s exciting though,” she says, a ring of scarlet lipstick smudging on her straw. “Two albums this year instead of one.”

Harry’s heart jumps. That panicky thing that nearly makes him physically clutch at his chest. He squeezes his water bottle instead, the plastic crunching under his thumb. “Two?”

She smirks then, having found her target. Harry fumbles with the cap on his bottle of water. The condensation has rubbed away on the fabric of Harry’s shirt and the water is nearly lukewarm.

“Yeah,” she says, twisting the straw in her drink again. The ice clinks against the side of the glass. “Yours _and_ Zayn’s.”

“Z--” Harry stops. He doesn’t think he’s actually _said_ his name since Jakarta. “He’s recording?”

“Oh,” she says, all faux innocence. “I thought you knew. It’s embargoed until May but you know gossip in LA.” She shrugs easily. “No one can keep a secret like that.”

“H!” Jeff says, swooping in at just the right moment. Maybe his intervention is intentional -- Harry knows he looks a bit gobsmacked. He can’t quite keep from dropping his jaw. Zayn’s gone. Yeah. He’s not gone to make another album. Not right away, anyway. 

Right?

“I’ll see you later,” Harry says politely to the girl and turns towards Jeff. “I’m gonna head.”

“Aw come on,” Jeff says, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “We should go for a few drinks. We could go down to SoHo House? It’ll be nice and quiet there at this time.”

Harry shakes his head. He feels too shaky to be here. He needs to get back to his car. Zayn’s recording. Already. He feels slightly naive to not have expected it. He can't help but think that the rest of them will be blindsided by this as well. 

His third of the bed is hardly even cold. 

“Nah, I’ve got to get back,” Harry tells him. “Niall’s here. I need to go and --”

Harry doesn’t have to do anything. No matter how much he has the urge to mollycoddle him, Niall can look after himself. 

And Jeff knows that. 

“See you later,” Harry says, not bothering to even come up with another excuse. He pushes through the door onto the street ignoring how Jeff’s calling after him. The sun has gone down and Harry hadn’t realised he’d spent long enough in the gallery for most of the light to fade from the sky. He takes a deep lungful of air but it’s hardly enough. 

Zayn’s recording. He knew he would at some point -- he’d be silly not to. 

But. 

It’s only been three weeks, for fuck’s sake. And he hadn’t even said to Harry.

Not that they’re talking anyway. 

Harry bites his lip hard enough that he can blame the sting in his eyes on that. Maybe that’s what’s getting to him the most. That he’s found out from some stranger with a crap hat at a pretentious art gallery. A gallery in LA where he’s trying to make a home for himself. A home where apparently Zayn is already settling in too. 

*

“Hello? Harry?” Niall’s voice rings out as soon as the door swings closed. Harry’s still feeling a bit jittery, his hand shaking as he pushes the living room door open and steps into the room. It’s in darkness, the television sending a panel of grey and blue light across the room to where Niall’s sprawled out across the sofa. 

“Why haven’t you got the light on?” Harry asks, the first thing that came to his mind apart from _Zaynzaynzaynzayn_. He drops bags of Chinese takeout on the coffee table and Niall’s shifting, reaching for it. He’s still only wearing the jumper, the hem of it falling short over his hip so Harry can see the jut of his bones disappearing into the waistband of his boxers.

“Thank God,” Niall sighs, his hand clutching around a pair of chopsticks like a victory. “Was starting to think I’d have to survive on flax seeds and spirulina for the rest of the week.”

Harry snorts, despite himself. “The fact you know what spirulina is makes me think you wouldn’t mind.”

Even in the shadowy light he can see how Niall pulls a face. 

Harry focuses on it, wills himself to be distracted by Niall. Nice, lovely Niall who he loves dearly and didn’t abandon him to go record his own shit album. 

“You weren’t here when I woke up,” Niall says. It sounds like an observation, no needy accusation in it. 

Harry drops to his knees beside the coffee table. “I went to three different places to see if any of them did prawn crackers.”

It’s partly true. After he left the gallery he went in search of food. Fuck his juice diet. 

In the first place, he was still too dazed to order properly, completely forgetting that he had Niall at home too. The woman behind the counter had smiled and handed his food over an entire thirty minutes after he had ordered and Harry couldn’t face putting himself through that again so he had got back into his car and tried another restaurant. 

It was while he was attempting to parallel park outside the next restaurant that it occurred to him that he should’ve went for sushi -- Niall’s new fad cuisine of choice and they don’t have to cater to Zayn’s picky food habits anymore, so it wouldn’t have caused a fuss. 

He had sat, one hand out to ask Siri to direct him to Nobu and the other clenched around the steering wheel as he tried to make a decision, the enticing scent of oily noodles and spicy beef sinking into his freshly valeted upholstery. 

His mind had snapped to a quiet Sunday, the three of them holed up in Niall’s living room all horribly hungover from the night before. Harry can’t even remember where they had been, a party maybe, someone’s house where it wouldn’t be a fuss for the three of them to be out together. He just knows that it had been a lazy day, taken until well into the afternoon for Harry to feel up to facing food, instead guzzling water all day until he felt human again. 

Zayn had found a Chinese take-away menu in the depths of a drawer and Niall had sweet talked them into delivering as soon as physically possible so he didn’t have to get dressed and go out in the car. 

They ate sprawled across the floor, food spread out on the coffee table. Harry had watched as Niall kissed Zayn down onto the rug in front of the fireplace, his body sliding over to settle across Zayn’s hips. It wasn’t until Zayn reached for Harry and dragged him down onto the bag of leftover prawn crackers, crunching loudly under his thigh as they rolled over, that they decided to head back to bed. 

“And?” Niall asks, shifting so he’s on the edge of the sofa, his knees bent neatly against the corner of the coffee table. Niall looks like he fits perfectly in Harry’s home and it’s heartwarming considering he’s been here all of twelve hours.

“They didn’t,” Harry says cheerily. “But I got free egg rolls.”

Niall snorts, reaching for one of the bags. “Egg rolls,” he imitates slowly and Harry gets it -- it feels foreign on Niall’s tongue. Harry’s caught himself changing the way he speaks here too. Niall lifts out the spring rolls and inspects them. 

“I’ll get plates,” Harry says, realising that they’ll need them as Niall starts to unload the rest of the bags. 

“Yeah,” Niall says quietly. “Find the lightswitch while you’re at it. This thing --” he lifts up the tablet remote control that Harry’s got nearly everything linked up to and secretly really proud of. “-- can turn music on in three different rooms but I can’t fucking find a light switch.”

Harry laughs, Niall looks so outraged, styrofoam container of chicken and sweetcorn soup in his lap. “It’s on a clapper.”

Niall glares at him. “A clapper?”

Harry struggles to his feet, snorting as he goes. He stands up straight, extending his hands. He’s exaggerating but Niall’s getting that look on his face -- when he starts to roll his lip like he’s truly disgusted -- and it’s too good an opportunity to miss.

Harry claps his hands and the lamps in each corner of the room come on, the glow brightening immediately. 

Niall narrows his eyes before he glances away, ducking his head into the plastic bag in front of him. “Pretentious twat,” he says, hardly under his breath.

Harry laughs gleefully and heads for the kitchen. He can hear Niall mutter to himself through the open doors and then the quick flick of the TV as Niall tries to find something good to watch. 

Harry likes him here. He likes that he’s picking out two plates from the cupboard beside the sink and two sets of cutlery. Sometimes, his big house can get lonely with just him wiling away the hours until his next yoga class or the next coffee run. 

Lately, it’s been so _busy_ for short bursts of time that the downtime and the time off feels like it drags. Or it feels like he’s not doing anything productive at all. He’ll have the TV on in the background but not really pay any attention until he’s sat watching adverts for health insurance and fake-lawyers asking him to claim back his PPI when he could be fastforwarding through the awful jingles. 

But when Niall’s here it doesn’t feel like he’s wasting time at all. He enjoys just hanging out with no expectations to perform, no expectation to be the centre of attention, no expectation to buy a round of drinks or to write a song off the top of his head or to charm some other gorgeous model. He doesn’t have to paste on a smile and skirt around questions about albums and going solo and how Zayn’s leaving was a shock to everyone. 

Harry stares at the chrome taps of the sink. He can see his reflection there, distorted with the twist and curve of the spout. He’s just a blob of face and wild hair, the fine china plates his mum picked out clutched to his chest. 

They don’t _have_ to talk about those things. But they probably _should_. He wonders if Niall knows that Zayn’s recording. If he’ll be as shocked as Harry apparently is.

Niall’s cracking open the last plastic container when Harry gets back. He smiles up at him when Harry hands him a plate and it’s settling but just not enough to stop the way Harry’s stomach is flopping about inside his gut. “Kind of disappointing that they don’t do it in the little cardboard boxes. You always see that in the cinema.”

Harry snorts. There’s that ease back between them. That back and forth. He tries to focus on it. “When was the last time you’ve been to the cinema?”

Niall rolls his eyes and sticks a spoon into a tub of hot and sour chicken. “You know what I mean.”

Harry nods and starts spooning out his own dinner. He’s bought far too much food -- enough for three -- but Niall doesn’t say anything, just settles back into the back cushions and starts eating. 

It doesn’t take Niall that long to start flicking again. Mindless sitcoms and dramas spin by in a whirl of colour and laughing tracks. Harry’s not sure how Niall can take it all in with how fast he’s going, the menu jarring and hardly keeping up. He makes it all the way to the sports sections before Harry gets sick of it. 

“Just pick something,” Harry tells him, staring down at his fried rice so he doesn’t have to look at how Niall reacts. 

“What do you want to watch then?” Niall asks easily. He’s got a foot pulled up onto the sofa. Harry can see the pale skin of his knee at the corner of his eye, the red of his scar still obvious despite the time since his operation. 

Harry fights a sigh. He takes a bite of a spring roll, the pastry breaking in his mouth. It tastes greasy, his fingers slippery with it. It’s duck -- Zayn’s favourite. “Whatever.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Niall asks, his laugh sounding nearly nervous. Harry glances at him, fiddles with his plate until he reaches forward to set it on the coffee table. Niall’s hand brushes across his back whilst he’s bent over and it makes him shiver. 

“Nothing,” Harry says, leaning back. Niall presses his palm flat to Harry’s spine. “What?”

“You’re twitchy.” Niall narrows his eyes, his mouth half-formed into an unsure smile. “Where’d you go today?”

Harry sighs, twisting a bit. “Just a gallery thing. It was for a friend of Jeff’s.”

Niall nods, his expression turning slightly bewildered like he’s not sure how that would lead to Harry acting off. He doesn’t push it, just settles back into the cushions again. 

“Someone,” Harry starts and stops. Niall glances at him, eyebrows raised. “Someone mentioned --”

He doesn’t have to say it because Niall’s face starts to harden. “Oh,” he says neutrally and picks up the remote again, turning to look at the TV. “Think there should be golf on. From the weekend.”

It’s such a blatant change of subject that Harry’s not sure what to do next. His hand hovers over his plate and he watches as Niall starts to push his food around his plate. Harry’s lost his appetite too. There’s still plenty left on the table -- some of the little boxes not even open. It’s such a waste. He hopes he catches a second wind and eats more later. 

For now, Harry sits back on the sofa. He doesn’t look at him directly but from the corner of his eye he can see when he starts to fidget. 

“And this person --” Niall starts on the end of a deep breath. He sounds like he’s been working up to saying something. Harry blinks over at him, sees how wide his eyes have gone. “And this person wanted to talk about it?”

Harry swallows. He doesn’t really want to tell him but he’s a firm believer of a problem halved, is a problem solved. Maybe that would have solved a few things before it got this far. “He’s recording.”

Niall drops his fork and it sounds loud on the thin edge of the plate. “Already?”

Harry nods. It’s so soon. But it’s what Zayn left to do. Even if he didn’t say it in so many words. 

It had all been so confusing when he had left. One moment he was lying in bed with them, his skin hot from the blazing sun and his hair a mess over the pillow because he went to sleep with it wet the night before. They all had -- all of them squeezing into the shower in Harry’s hotel room. They didn’t quite fit but getting clean wasn’t the aim of the game. 

The next --  
Well.

It was hot words spoken at the wrong moment.

It was cold shoulders and glares across stuffy dressing rooms, biting words and bitterness in the bowels of a stadium they’d never been before. It was displaced upset and anger that was fizzing out of them with nowhere else to go. 

It was Louis asking ‘Lover’s tiff’ and Zayn snarling ‘Fuck up, Tommo,’ in response. 

But Harry hadn’t expected --

Harry closes his eyes and he can still see the look of betrayal on Niall’s face when Marco told them that Zayn had decided to head home. 

It had flashed across his face for just a moment and Harry hadn’t seen it again after, like he hasn’t allowed himself to feel it since. 

Harry had taken to ignoring both of them, finding solace in a bottle and a crowd of acquaintances that wouldn’t ask too many questions whilst Niall had taken up his spot as consoler, fixer, soother all at once. 

But it clearly hadn’t worked.

Instead, Niall’s face flicked between stoic blanket determination, bright-not-quite-right cheerfulness and a brief moment of frantic angry anxiousness when Harry came across him packing and repacking his entire wardrobe into one suitcase at four the next morning.

“You’re not leaving too, are you?” Harry had asked when he let himself into Niall’s hotel room and took in the tight rolls of t-shirts and jeans all sitting neatly in the lid of his Louis Vuitton. Bright socks balled into every available crevice, anything of Harry’s that had strayed into his stuff all bundled up too. 

Harry had expected Niall to already be asleep so the sight had sent him reeling. Panic flooded through his gut so viscerally that he nearly needed to sit down. Not another one. Not again. 

“No,” Niall had snapped, his shoulders tight and rounded from where he was kneeling in the middle of the room. He had nearly sounded venomous, his voice carrying loudly across the room, the rest of the world quiet that early in the morning.

A tense silence had followed as he rearranged his shoulders, as his face went blank again. 

“We should go to bed,” Harry had said. Ignoring the huge elephant in the room. And they’re still ignoring it now. 

Harry didn’t realise that both of them would be so good at it. 

He says it again -- now -- when Niall starts another cycle through the television channels. “We need to go to bed.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, slowly dragging himself up off the sofa. Neither of them are tired -- their mid-afternoon naps taking away any urge to sleep.

“Go on up,” Harry tells him, gesturing to the plates still on the coffee table. “I’ll be right there.”

Niall hesitates, like he’s about to say something but then he changes his mind, nodding and slipping off in the direction of the staircase again. 

Harry’s glad, not sure what he would have to say. He takes his time stacking the plates into the dishwasher, boxes up the leftover food into the fridge even though he knows neither of them will eat it tomorrow. 

Niall’s still getting ready for bed when Harry gets there, despite how long he had taken cleaning down the coffee table and turning out all the lamps by hand instead of clapping at them.

Harry stands in the doorway to the en suite, his shoulder pressed into the metal of the doorjamb. Niall meets his eyes in the mirror, his toothbrush still in his mouth. 

Harry watches as he bends and spits, his back looking taut again under his thin t-shirt. 

“I don’t --” Niall says once he’s washed his mouth out and placed his toothbrush back into the glass beside Harry’s. His mouth looks very red like this, under the pale of the bathroom lights. “I don’t really want to fuck around.”

He sounds assured, like he’s thought this through. 

“That’s fine,” Harry tells him, because it is. He’s not going to bed expecting sex. It would be nice -- don’t get Harry wrong. It would be a sure way of falling asleep, a way to get out of his head, focus on something fun for the first time in weeks. Be close to Niall like that again. 

But he hadn’t been expecting it. 

Niall nods tightly, something like relief breaking into the squint of his eyes as he relaxes his face. 

Harry’s throat feels a bit tight at that -- that Niall had maybe felt nervous or anxious in telling Harry. He decides not to push it, not to ask why. 

“I’ll see you in a minute,” Niall murmurs and he reaches out, his hand brushing across Harry’s hip as he passes him in the doorway. Harry tries not to think that three weeks ago, it would’ve been a kiss. 

*

Harry wakes up at half six, just like he usually does in LA. The sun is bright in his bedroom but it’s still cool enough that Harry wants to twist into the warmth under the blankets. He can feel Niall curled up behind him, a weight at the other side of the mattress. He feels close but there’s still a few very real inches between them. 

Harry doesn’t remember when he had finally fell asleep the night before, just that it was long after he had gone to bed. He knew that Niall had been awake too, both of them lying in silence, the slow rustle of sheets as each of them moved to keep comfortable. Harry had waited for a change in his breathing, timed his own to the slow in and out across the mattress.

Harry turns his eyes away from Niall’s shoulder, watches dust motes spin above them before he pulls himself up and away. 

Niall’s still sleeping when Harry’s finished in the bathroom. He’s rolled into the middle, face half squashed into Harry’s pillow in the time since he’s gotten up. Niall had always liked the middle. He looks soft, his face evened out in sleep, but also tired. There’s circles under his eyes, his cheeks sallow. 

Harry doesn’t wake him.

His dawdling has nearly left him late for his morning class so he pulls his hair into a bun and eats half a grapefruit over the sink, juice running down his chin and is out the door without setting the alarm.

His new next door neighbour is struggling by the bins, his hands laden with pizza boxes. Harry feels a pang of guilt as he stops the car just outside his gate, his window already sliding down. He knows the neighbourly thing to do would be to get out and help him -- meet them properly -- but if he wastes anymore time, Harry’ll miss the warm-up stretches. 

Harry pulls the handbrake and takes a step out of the car, about to shout out a friendly ‘hello’ when the man finishes by the bins and turns to face him.

“Fuck --,” Harry breathes, when it clicks in his head who the familiar set of shoulders are. 

Even from ten feet away, Harry can see how he’s steadying himself against the garbage cans. It was one of the things that had made him laugh when he first moved permanently to LA, that they had those silver bins like he was living in The Sims. Zayn had laughed about how living in LA would never feel real with things like that.

But there he is. Right as rain. 

Zayn.

Zayn plain as day in front of him. As if he didn’t walk out on the band. Walk out on _them_ less than a month ago. 

As if he upped and moved away from home and into a house right beside Harry’s in fucking LA. Where Niall is tucked up in his bed and Harry’s on his way to his mundane yoga class.

Harry stares at him -- the slant of his shoulders, how his hair flops down over his forehead. The way that familiar smile spreads across his mouth when he recognises Harry. He’s still staring when Zayn moves, his hand lifting a few inches as if he’s about to wave. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Harry snaps, the building resentment unfurling properly in his gut. 

Zayn drops his hand, shock registering on his face. He looks ridiculous standing in the driveway in his bare feet and a threadbare jumper. He’s half asleep, his eyes drooping but Harry knows it’s the expression of someone who has been up all night rather than just awake. 

“Good morning to you too,” Zayn calls, his voice drenched in sarcasm. “Neighbour.”

Harry falls back into the driver’s seat. There’s a hot prick at the back of his throat to shout back at him but Harry doesn’t even know what he’d say. It’s all a jumble inside him, so much so that he’s nearly overwhelmed by the ferociousness of how angry he is at the mere sight of him. 

Harry had thought he had been dealing with it, working through it. Well, better than Niall if he was to compare it. Better than the rest of the boys. 

The blinding anger roiling in his gut probably means different. 

Zayn puts a hand to his cocked hip, looking patronisingly okay with running into Harry at half past seven in the morning. 

Harry’s foot jerks and he’s pressing on the accelerator, the car revving as he heads down the hill towards town. He glances in the rearview mirror, sees the figure by the bins grow smaller. His mind a blurred buzz of ZaynZayn_Zayn_.

He’s still fuming when he gets to the centre, his face like thunder as he barges into the back yoga studio. Some of his other classmates glance over their shoulders to see who is banging through the door when they’re already warmed up and centred and Harry forces himself to calm down. It’s a bit unsettling -- all those eyes -- but he’s used to it and he throws down his mat at the back of the class ignoring them all anyway. 

He fills his lungs with fresh air, stretches his muscles. Rolls into janu sirsasana and tries to push it all out of his head. He takes another inhale. Presses his forehead to his knee and feels the stretch. 

That smirk. Even in the blackness behind Harry’s eyes, he can see it. How he looked nearly cocky. How he looked like he didn’t know what leaving them had done. 

Like he didn’t care.

Harry exhales, rolls his shoulders and extends his spine. He stretches his neck, brings his ankle back up onto his opposite knee. Swings his arms, brings his knuckles together and extends his hands up over his head.

He’ll have to tell Niall. Have to break it to him all over again that Zayn’s a fucking asshole who has just moved in next door to rub it in their faces. Harry feels another throb of anger at the thought of _Niall_ running into him.

Niall will probably go mute if his reaction is anything like last night. Probably bottle everything so tight up inside him that if he opened his mouth, he’d just explode.

Harry takes a breath, feels the strain in his triceps and core. It’s supposed to be grounding but to Harry, everything is crumbling down around him. 

What is he supposed to even say when Niall clearly doesn’t want to fucking talk about it. 

Talking is what got them into this mess, or not talking about the right things. Or. Or Harry doesn’t even know anymore. 

Zayn bringing up the idea of a break and it being shut down. _Again_. The relentless boredom of having to listen to him complaining about the tour and it only having started. The frustration of forgotten lyrics, of disjointed songs, the tonic in bright Australian sun, the scream of the crowd that Harry honestly had missed over Christmas. 

Zayn shrinking into himself while Niall had bloomed with it.

Harry huffs out a frustrated breath and opens his eyes. The instructor is looking at him, her face turned into a taut frown. Harry gets the feeling that it’s not the first time she has glanced over at him. He knows he’s given up following her instructions. Her little preppy monologue about inner integrity and head over heart and bringing the sun into your life as you open up to love are grating rather than encouraging this morning. The rest of the class roll their shoulders and go back to anjali mudra. Harry presses his hands together, feels the pressure in his palms.

He tries to exhale slowly but he can hear himself and it irks him, doesn’t feel as soothing as it’s meant to, that slow in and out of his own breath. The knowledge of his own lungs filling up inside him. 

He normally finds yoga soothing -- even the early morning energizing classes he always seems to catch. Usually, he can feel his eyelids drooping as he brings his navel to his spine. 

But today it’s not working. He ends up picking his mat off the floor and leaving early. There’s no point in trying to calm himself when he just wants to pound the treadmill for three hours. To fill his ears with the roar of his own blood and forget about his own internal monologue as it oscillates between the imaginary conversations he’d have with Niall or Zayn and which one would be worse. 

Mark’s told him off in the past for doing this, Harry reminds himself as he walks through the reception area towards the gym. It’s still half empty, in that lull between when everyone goes to work and the carefree unemployed turn up around mid-morning for a few laps of the heated pool. There’s an aquarobics class Harry’s been tempted to go to more than once while he’s been on extended stays in LA. But today he heads straight to the gym. Harry drops his mat between two empty treadmills and starts at a light jog, upping the speed until he can taste the salt from his sweat on his bottom lip. 

It’s still plaguing him as he admits defeat, his legs turning to jelly as he slows to a stop. His heart is racing, his face hot and damp. He pulls his t-shirt up over his head, presses his nose and lips into the soft cotton. There goes his face cleansing routine.

The carpark is ten times busier as he heads for his car. He circles around the block, the instrumentals Julian’s working on playing through his soundsystem. They’re still in the early stages -- the cymbals sounding tinny and the drum beat hollow because it’s through a machine. It’s the building blocks of a song, Liam always tells them. It’ll turn into something great. 

Harry always tries to believe him but this time, more than any other, there seems to be more tracks vetoed than any other album before. Some being thrown out before they had even been circulated around all five of them. It’s left him feeling uninspired and they haven’t even started yet. The track shifts, something a bit more upbeat. Harry thinks it needs trumpets. 

Zayn had hated every single one of them.

He has to get a trolley to walk around Whole Foods, leaning heavily onto the handlebar any time his thighs decide to give a spasm. 

His mind keeps drifting back over to Zayn’s expression this morning, the sun behind his head. He had squinted, that tired, wrecked expression that Harry knows all too well. Maybe he was focusing, like he couldn’t believe it was Harry either. Harry rolls his eyes and throws a packet of overpriced organic peppers into his basket. 

He knew it was him. He knows where Harry lives in LA. It’s not a coincidence. It’s a fucking taunt.

Harry can’t quite connect the dots. Can’t figure out _why_ Zayn thought it would be okay to turn up in LA after negotiating their break up via their managers and a team of brand new lawyers.

That unsettles him more, though. Enough so that he ends up thinking about it the entire drive back to his house. Enough that it makes a plan half form in his gut, something that he would never act on if he was thinking straight.

He hesitates at the turn off for his driveway, gut twisting before parking up at the side of the road, his wheel half on the curb. In the back seat, his shopping topples over against his gym bag. 

The gates are heavy, just like the ones on Harry’s own property. He wonders idly, as he presses his thumb to the bell, if Niall had felt this nervous calling at his house yesterday. He hopes he hadn’t. Doesn’t. He wants Niall to feel at home here. Like it’s his house too. In some ways it already is. 

“Yeah?” Comes a voice. There’s no rush to it. No hesitancy either. Harry never thought it would sound so _normal_. 

Harry finds it hard to speak, like all his words have shrivelled up inside him and turned to dust. They gather at the back of his throat, a growing ball of dry ash. 

He coughs instead, a great splutter that forces out of his mouth abruptly enough that there’s a few stray drops of spittle on the chrome of the keypad. Harry stares at them for a long moment, his hands locked where they’re clenched around the railing.

“Harry?”

Harry closes his eyes. How on earth can he tell it was him by just his cough? Harry has that feeling of being bared open again and he tugs the sleeve of his t-shirt, as if there would be a chill in the midday sun. 

It would be silly of him to run away, even though his body is unconsciously already turning away from the intercom. He shivers, the sweat on his neck cool.

The gates buzz, a slightly lower pitch to Harry’s but similar enough that his heart lurches. He stares at the widening gap between them, panic twisting through his gut.

The gardens have started to grow in a little bit, the cute lawn area a little smaller than Harry’s front garden because all up the slope of the garden is a gravel rock shrubbery. There’s a Beemer parked in the driveway but Harry knows it doesn’t belong to Zayn so he feels a little unsettled as he approaches the entry, wary of who will be inside. 

The door is ajar when he gets to it, the foyer opening up much wider than Harry’s. Harry isn’t sure why he’s comparing Zayn’s house to his own down the road but he’s curious to find where Zayn’s ended up. In all of Harry’s half cooked daydreams about Zayn and Niall joining him in LA, he always imagined that Zayn would want to stay at home. This feels wrong somehow. Too big and show-offy, the shiny part of town. 

“Hey,” Zayn says and finally there’s hesitation in his voice. It sounds so real unobstructed by the crackle of the intercom. He’s standing below the staircase, as if he came any closer he’d scare Harry away. 

Maybe he would. 

Zayn’s still in his boxers, his hair soft from bed. It feels backwards, considering Harry’s been up and about so early this morning. Zayn’s wearing the same jumper from before but now that he’s closer, Harry can see that it’s been artfully plucked and pulled so it’s full of tiny little holes. It’s a soft grey, nearly duck egg wool and looks ridiculously soft and warm for the Californian heat.

It reminds him of Niall’s jumper and he nearly laughs -- both of them so unprepared for where Harry’s starting to think of home. 

“Hi,” Harry says quietly. All his anger is still there but it’s dulled by the shock of seeing him up close. Harry’s eyes rove over him, taking in the stubble on his chin and the soft look in his eyes. One hand is curled in the hem of his jumper, pulling it up a little bit so Harry can see the waistband of the plain black Calvin Klein’s. 

They stare at each other for another long moment before Zayn breaks into a fragile smile. “How are you?”

Harry laughs bitterly. It feels strange to be exchanging pleasantries like this. Small talk. After everything that’s happened.

“Great,” he says. Even though it’s apparent that it’s not. Zayn just raises his eyebrows slightly, shifts his weight onto his other foot. He’s holding a mug in his other hand and he’s compensating his weight for it, leaning one way and then the next. 

The silence drags on until Harry can’t help it anymore. “What are you doing here?”

Zayn smiles, his eyes going tight. “Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.”

Harry lets out a breath. He vindictively feels proud of himself of predicting that he’d be like this. That there’s no admission that Zayn made a mistake, no apology. 

It’s all kindling to the flame. 

Harry’s legs begin to ache from standing so straight, the anger fizzling hot through his spent muscles. He realises he’s got his hands clenched and he tries to relax, his chest too tight. 

“And?” Harry asks, his voice hard.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Zayn says, slowly at first. His voice is scratchy in a way that Harry can appreciate on an instinctual level. “I’m getting used to my jetlag.”

Harry seethes. “That’s _all_ you have to say? Your fucking jetlag.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, his face finally breaking into something more familiar. Harry had seen it enough times in the days leading up to him leaving to last a lifetime. Zayn faced four-against-one and leaving them, rolling his eyes at something one of them had said. “Here we go.”

“Yes!” Harry snaps, taking a step toward him. “Here we go. What are you doing _here_?”

Harry doesn’t know what answer he wants -- that he’s recording, that he’s here to make up, that he’s here to rub their noses in it. Any of them just as devastating as the last. 

“Next door?” Harry growls. “The whole of the city, the whole of the world to pick a house and you pick next door? You couldn’t fucking wait to get _away_ from us on tour. What’s changed?”

Zayn frowns but doesn’t say anything. He leans back, sets his mug on the bottom stair. “It wasn’t like that,” he says. “None of you were listening so I decided --”

Harry cuts him off, deflecting. “What’s changed?” he asks again, his voice tight. 

Zayn’s lips press together, his gaze sharp. Harry doesn’t want to listen to him now even though he’s firing questions at him. 

He wants answers but doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t want to have to work through Zayn’s words and think about the expression of his face, trying to link it all to the slope of his shoulders or the curve of his hip.

Maybe, Harry just wants to be heard this time. “Heard you were writing.” 

Zayn looks unfazed. Harry’s insides burn with it, he had wanted it to be more wounding. For Zayn to realise that he can’t just start anew without Harry knowing all about it. 

“I’m always writing,” he says with a shrug. 

Words lodge in Harry’s throat.

“Do you want to hear?” Zayn asks. And there’s the taunt. Something hard and teasing. Something smug. Zayn knows where to pinch and pull at Harry, knows all his soft spots just like Harry knows his. 

Harry doesn’t answer -- can’t. He’s played right into it. 

“No,” he forces out, turning his head away. He hears Zayn huff a mirthless laugh and it’s only now that he realises how close they’re standing. Harry’s walked right up to him, only an arms length away. 

Zayn’s hand is warm when it touches his side, anchoring him in closer. Harry goes with it, unsure really how not to. There’s always that pull between them and it’s confusing being so angry with someone yet still so attached. 

Harry turns his head slowly, feels weak doing it.

“Fuck sake, Haz,” Zayn says softly, catching him in a kiss. Harry gasps into it, pushes all the venom and anger in his veins through his tongue into Zayn’s mouth until it’s nearly bruising. 

They tumble, Harry pressing Zayn into the banister and then they hit the wall with a thump, the shock juddering up through Zayn’s arms and into Harry’s ribs. Zayn’s mug skitters across the marble floor, the sound ringing out through the house.

It makes them pull away, Harry’s mouth sore. Zayn’s panting, his shoulders lifting. 

“Come on,” Zayn says, that sweet smile on his mouth, his cheeks pinking up. His thumb is pressed to Harry’s pulsepoint, his fingers curling over his shoulder. Harry watches as his eyes rove over Harry’s face, drop down to his collarbone, trail up his neck before he meets him in a stare. Zayn laughs, licking over his bottom lip. “Bed’s upstairs.”

Harry can’t speak. It could be five months ago and Harry is pressed up against a wall in Zayn’s house in London. It could be long before, both of them tangled together in corridors and cupboards and corners of buses. 

Zayn smiles again, his eyes crinkling and he looks so young, so bright for a moment that Harry nearly kisses him again. But something in the ease in Zayn’s brow makes his chest tighten. The thought that with one kiss, Zayn can dismiss his anger, can forget how upset Harry is.

“Harry --” Zayn starts, reading the devastation in Harry’s face. He drops a hand to Harry’s side to keep him from pulling away. 

“No,” Harry chokes. His mouth feels on fire and Harry stumbles back on autopilot. “That’s not meant to happen. This isn’t right.”

Because it’s not before. It’s not even five months ago when they were teetering on that downward turn. They’re not carefree and hiding hickeys from each other or pulling Niall into bed with them, laughing until their throats ached. Too much time has passed. 

“Right?” Zayn asks, confused. “Of course it’s right.”

Harry turns away from him, feeling sick. “I have to go.” 

By the door, there’s a screen and Harry catches the flicker of the front step, the gates, the nose of his car just in frame of the security footage. 

Harry’s throat burns at the thought of Zayn watching him, seeing him coming. Harry squeezes his fingers together and escapes out into the hot sun. 

Next door, his own gates are already open and Harry doesn’t think about it as he pulls his car up in front of the garage door. Half of his groceries are on the floor of the backseat and he has to stretch to get them, thighs burning as he picks up bananas and stray avocados. They feel warm and soft as he shoves them back into the paper bags and Harry hadn’t realised he was in Zayn’s house so long -- his lettuce wilted and curling in on itself as it had sweated in the bag. 

Harry’s house feels cool as he walks through the foyer and past the growing row of shoes by the door. He throws the groceries on the island, his ears searching for the sound of feet upstairs. 

For a moment, Harry wonders if Niall’s gone. He wouldn’t put it past him. They can both be like that -- flighty and non-confrontational -- when they want to be. Guiltily, Harry wonders if it would be easier. 

Harry takes a breath, feels his throat ache. He grips the thick marble counter until the space between his fingers and thumb stings.

The house is silent around him. Harry’s insides _burn_.

| bone | 

Niall’s hobbling when he finally comes home and Harry feels his anger tamp down to worry instead.

“What’ve you done?” Harry asks instead of _where’ve you been?_ Harry’s spent the rest of the afternoon tearing his hair out about what he’s going to say to Niall, wondering where the fuck he was.

Niall glances up, drops his jacket over the corner of one of the chairs at the breakfast bar. Harry stares at it -- it’s one of Harry’s from the back of his wardrobe but it’s also thirty degrees out -- Niall’s so unprepared for California it’s nearly endearing. 

Niall doesn’t answer, just eases himself into the chair next to his -- Harry’s -- jacket. He sets the keys in his hands down on the marble and Harry stares at them -- they’re the keys to the Jag. Harry’s stomach lurches at the thought of him driving it. He hadn’t even noticed it was missing.

“Where’ve you been?” Harry asks now, eyes still on the keys.

It comes out accusing but Harry sort of means it that way. Niall can take the shirt off his back but his cars are a slightly different matter. He’s seen the way Niall drives around those country roads at home, ensconced in the phantom safety of a four wheel drive. Niall’s battered Range Rover isn’t Harry’s vintage Jaguar. 

Niall doesn’t answer. 

“We’ll get you your own car, yeah?” Harry says and Niall flicks his eyes up to him. He stops fiddling with the keys, nudges them into the centre of the island and Harry fights the urge to snatch them up. 

On closer inspection, Niall looks washed out under the fluorescents in Harry’s kitchen. It’s not even dinner time yet but he looks exhausted. Jetlag, Harry thinks absently. Tour, the break up, LA, take your fucking pick.

“You can go wherever you want, then.’ Harry bites his lip on sounding so patronising but Niall’s silence is unnerving. Harry tries to shake away his paranoia, guilt already eating at him. He pushes a hand through his sweaty hair, feels a bit sick. 

He should probably tell him now. Just get it all out in the open now while he can. It’s not a big deal -- he just found out this morning that Zayn was right next door. 

Harry stares at the swirl of the marble worktop. He can’t quite believe that it was just a few hours ago. That Niall’s only been here a day. That tour only ended a week and a half ago. 

Harry’s head hurts at the enormity of it. 

He doesn’t even need to tell Niall that he’s spoken to him -- Harry’s stomach lurches -- that he’s kissed him, that for a moment Harry considered just throwing everything away and--

Harry doesn’t even know what he’d say. That he ran away? That he came to his senses? 

That Zayn’s right next door and he hasn’t stopped thinking about him, about the feel of his hands on his skin, the heat of his mouth.

There’s the lingerings of something tawdry to it, something secretive. 

Harry delves into the nearest brown paper bag, just to have something to do with his hands and pulls out his rapidly blackening bunch of bananas. He might have to make banana bread instead. “I was thinking I would do dinner tonight? Sort of getting tired of all the MSG.”

He catches the way Niall rolls his eyes when he turns back to him but doesn’t say anything, grits his teeth against snapping because at least it’s a reaction. 

Harry forces himself to take a breath. It sort of feels like it’s another Harry doing all these things. Some other Harry that has a temper on a fuse, that is sick to his stomach. Another Harry whose heart is in the vice grip of panic and making all these mistakes that Harry would never normally make. 

Silence rings between them as Harry crumples the bag between his fingers. _Just say it._ The words are on the tip of his tongue but it feels too much like a confession.

“Yeah,” Niall says tiredly behind him. “Sounds nice.”

Harry breathes out slowly. His fingers find a bag of peppers. “Any preference?” Harry asks as he counts red, yellow and green. 

It’s on the tip of his tongue _oh, by the way, guess who I ran into..._

Harry opens his mouth, glances back at Niall. He looks so tired, his shoulders slumped and he shakes his head. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” Harry taking the out like a coward. He can’t tell him when Niall looks so visibly wrecked. “My pick then?”

He waits for Niall’s faux groan but it never comes. Harry’s eating habits and fad diets are usually an easy target these days. Instead, Niall offers him a soft, worn smile that makes Harry’s chest squeeze. 

“So, where did you go?” Harry asks again, shifting the conversation.

Niall pulls a face -- sort of a cross between a grimace and wince and hefts his leg up onto the island. It looks awkward, his leg too distended from his hip and Harry worries briefly that he’s going to tip his chair back and crack his head on the marble floor. 

“What?” Harry asks, trailing his eyes down his thin leg. It’s not the leg with the scar so he’s confused for a moment to why he’s got it up on the table. 

And then he sees it. The crumpled and folded hardly transparent cling film wrapped around his ankle a few times. 

“You got a tattoo,” Harry states, all thoughts of telling him about Zayn disappearing. 

Niall glances at him, eyes wide like he should be guilty. “Yeah,” Niall replies, voice going rough. “Went to that place you brought us the last time. It’s still good, right?”

Harry doesn’t answer immediately, the punnet of blueberries in his hand sliding from his palm onto the marble countertop. A few bounce out and roll off the edge. Niall will stand on them later; Harry can already hear himself telling him off for not wearing flip-flops around the house when Niall complains of the squelch between his toes.

The last time Harry had got a tattoo in LA, both Niall and Zayn had came with him. They had snuck in under the cover of darkness to watch Zayn get something -- the lotus flower maybe -- and Harry had ended up getting something stupid on his arm too because he just couldn’t resist. They had cajoled Niall into the chair, laughing at his expression when they suggested he get a rose on his hip or a skull on his chest.

“Well, too late,” Niall tries to joke to break the silence. “Let’s hope my foot doesn’t fall off with gangrene, eh? It’s not that big anyway. Can’t do too much damage, right?”

Harry glances up at him before reaching down, cradling the heel of Niall’s foot in his warm hand. “What did you get?”

It’s perfunctory -- he just needs to hear Niall say it. He knows what it is before even unwrapping it. Niall doesn’t answer so Harry peels away the layers of plastic until he can see the tiny cross etched into his ankle and the slightly raised skin around it. 

“It felt weird not having it,” Niall starts to explain but Harry doesn’t need to hear it. He stares at the cross -- the screw. It feels so long since he got his own and yet he remembers the warm feeling at watching Zayn get his done. How they’d slid their legs together and Harry had known that they matched. How it was exciting and new. That buzz of the needle. The heat of doing something so _adult_ on their own. Treading the thin line of recklessness.

And now Niall’s got one. Four years later that feel like a lifetime. 

“But,” he says quietly. Niall’s foot feels heavy in his palm but weightless at the same time, like Niall’s holding back. Keeping his weight centred on himself instead of relaxing into Harry’s hold. 

That’s new too. 

Harry rubs his thumb over the tender skin just to make sure it’s real. Niall hisses and when Harry glances up he can see how nervous he looks. It doesn’t feel like he’s looking at Niall, it could be anyone of the other’s foot in his hand right now, Liam’s or Louis’s. Zayn’s. Harry swallows, presses his thumb against it again and watches as Niall’s face twists. It’s definitely real. 

He tries not to imagine how Niall was when he got it done. He always thought that Niall would’ve asked him to go with him, would’ve made sure that Harry was there. Harry _wanted_ to be there. He sort of wanted to be the one to do it. To carry on the tradition. 

If he did, he would’ve put it in a different place. An inch to the left. Up a little bit like where he put it on Zayn’s foot so they matched in every sense.

Where he’s got it, it’s a little off centre. Adrift. 

Harry shakes his head. The tattoo is _fine_ where it is. Harry just would’ve done it different. Done it _right_.

“I have a --” Harry clears his throat, still trying to wrap his head around it. Niall went and got a tattoo. He went and got a tattoo without him. Niall went and got a screw on his ankle while Harry secretly sucked Zayn’s face next door. 

Harry drops Niall’s foot, stares at where the blueberries are gathering at the far corner of the island. There must be a fancy way the marble has been molded so they don’t just roll off the edge. Harry didn’t even ask for that especially. It probably cost an extra five hundred dollars. “You won’t need to wrap it. I have a cream that’ll help.”

“Are you --” Niall asks and then he stops himself. His face looks tight when Harry turns back to him.

He doesn’t finish his sentence but Harry waits, just in case he does. He probably owes him that. 

“Are you mad?” Niall finally manages and Harry feels his stomach drop. Guilt throbs at the back of his throat. For a moment he thinks that it’s harsh enough that he could cry with it.

“No, _Niall_,” Harry says, reaching for him again. Niall glances away, turns his cheek to Harry’s face and it makes Harry feel even worse. He’s never been in this position -- where he couldn’t read Niall like an open book. 

“I know you said you wanted to come if I ever got one and --” Niall says in a rush. Harry feels himself staring. He doesn’t remember ever saying that but Niall looks so adamant suddenly that Harry knows he must’ve. “I just --” Niall starts again but breaks off. His voice sounds constricted and Harry thinks, with a lurch, that _he_ might cry. “I mean it’s tiny, it doesn’t even matter -- I just thought it would make me feel better. More grounded. You know?”

Harry stares at him because he doesn’t really know. He’s only ever really gotten tattoos because they looked cool or he was bored. And most of them have had to be covered. He knows that the ink of his skin doesn’t hold much meaning.

“The four of you,” Niall says. He’s gone back to picking at the frayed edge of a hole in his jeans. “The four of you all have it-- had it-- _have_ it. And even if we aren’t all together anymore --”

Harry settles into the side of the breakfast bar heavily, the marble digging into his side. “It never meant any less. That you didn’t have it. You know that.”

Niall’s face twists and then he looks impassive again. Harry wants to shake him. To make him just open up to him. He watches as Niall takes a deep breath, as if to steel himself. “Just wanted to feel connected again,” he says. 

Harry feels slightly sick. “You are connected. You’re connected to me and --”

Niall shrugs, his face going blank again. “That’s not what I --”

“And do you --” Harry asks, quickly. --”feel connected?” It feels pushy of him to ask him like this. When he’s clearly struggling with expressing himself properly but Harry doesn’t care. That other Harry is breaking through again, the one that’s making all his mistakes today. The one that has no regard for the careful glass cage they’ve built around themselves the past few weeks to avoid talking about anything important lately.

Niall doesn’t say anything, stares at the marble top. 

Harry turns towards the door, tries not to think of it as running away. “I’ll go get this cream.”

He stumbles on the final step but Harry should be happy he managed to get even that far with the way his eyes are starting to stream. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself, lifting a hand to push through into his room with his forearm. He feels sticky, his gym gear too close to his skin. An hour ago, Zayn was trying to take it off him.

Niall’s made the bed, his pillows tucked over the edge of the duvet. Harry stares for a moment too long at the grey of his sheets, the exact same shade as Zayn’s jumper. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, pushing his way into the bathroom. It’s a bit more normal in here -- the way his clothes from this morning are still lying in a heap in the corner, Niall’s boxers on top. 

He sets the water to scorching and steps in face first to the water. 

It’s hard to tell if he’s crying under the spray, his eyes screwed tightly shut against the heat of the water. He can feel it bore into his skin, soften him up where his muscles have grown hard. It isn’t until he lets out a half-sob that he really acknowledges it. 

He spits at his feet, his mouth flooding with saliva. It feels like a betrayal of his own body, his mind flashing back to the feel of Zayn against his tongue. 

“Jesus, fuck!,” Harry shouts at himself. It echoes a bit with all the tiles in the bathroom and doesn’t make him feel any better at all.

*

Niall’s got something simmering on the stove by the time Harry makes it down the stairs. His hair is still damp and Niall’s gaze lingers where it’s soaked into the shoulders of his t-shirt, the pale grey cotton growing darker. 

Harry breaks the silence by clearing his throat. “You cooked?” 

Niall glances back up at him. He shrugs and then says quietly, “Wasn’t sure when you’d be back down. You away bottling that cream yourself?”

Harry forces himself to smile but it’s at the back of Niall’s head because he’s turned back to the stove. He’s rolled up the bottom of his jeans now so that his left leg is bare from the shin down, hair lightening with exposure to the sun. Harry can see where the clingfilm is still tightly wrapped around his ankle. It’s sort of endearing that he’s still got it on for such a tiny tattoo. 

“Left it upstairs,” Harry mumbles. 

Niall shrugs. “We’ll eat first, it’s okay.”

Harry nods. He feels useless in his own kitchen as Niall moves about, dishing up dinner into bowls and across plates. He’s made tacos and Harry’s reminded painfully of when he first introduced Niall to them, back when they were fending for themselves in the X Factor house and Harry was half living off pre packaged sandwiches out of the local Sainsburys and waiting for the next meal he’d get at the studios. Niall was the only one who knew how to cook properly -- right at the start anyway -- and graciously humoured Harry’s love of Old El Paso dinner kits. 

“Your salad was a bit wilted,” Niall tells him, nudging the bowl where he’s put the bagged lettuce. He hasn’t done much else to it except chop up a cucumber and throw in some avocado. It looks very green. 

Harry smiles but it feels tight across his mouth. “Maybe it sat in the car too long.”

Harry looks away quickly, panic clawing up his throat wondering why the fuck he said that.

“That’s what you get for buying proper organic stuff,” Niall attempts to joke. He plunges two of Harry’s wooden spoons into the bowl. Harry’s not sure how he’s found all the correct implements in Harry’s sprawling cupboards. “Not enough preservatives.”

Harry can’t even muster a laugh. That’s what he gets for leaving it in his oven of a car as he fucked his ex-boyfriend neighbour, more like. 

Guilt rots at his insides. It’s scooped out everything in him that makes him brave and honest and all his soft bits are just going to cave into the cavernous space left behind. Harry slumps down in the chair and watches as Niall navigates his kitchen like it’s his own. 

Harry begs off to bed early -- earlier than what’s believable -- after he scrubs every dish in the kitchen clean by hand. Niall raises his eyebrows at him from where he’s sprawled across the sofa in the living room. He mutes the television clearly expecting some sort of further explanation from Harry but Harry just smiles tightly at him and wishes him goodnight. 

He’s still awake when Niall comes to bed, listens to the click of the hallway light and Niall’s quiet movements as he drops his clothes on the floor beside the bed. Harry pretends to be asleep, his body too tense as the mattress shifts with Niall’s weight. 

He can’t help the sharp breath of air that sounds out when Niall rolls close, kissing right between Harry’s hunched shoulder blades. 

There’s a pause, both of them breathing audibly. The house slipping into silence around them. 

“Night, Harry,” Niall mumbles, settling into sleep curled close to Harry’s back but not quite touching. 

Harry can’t bring himself to speak. 

*

“Do you want to just watch a film tonight?” Niall asks him. Niall’s been quiet all day and Harry looks up, startled that he’s standing in his doorway. He looks a little bit hot from the sun and Harry wonders if he’s slipped out for a run or something when Harry wasn’t looking. 

It sort of troubles him that he could lose track of him for so long during the day but Harry has to remind himself that he’s not Niall’s keeper. It just feels like he hasn’t seen him in a while -- actually spent any real time with him. Which is madness when Niall is living under his roof.

The air between them has still been tense -- Niall not mentioning the tattoo again and Harry still stewing about Zayn. It feels as if he’s about to blurt out about Zayn every time he opens his mouth but something traitorous inside him that stops the words coming out. Time’s edged on, the quiet, confused discord between them stretching out until Harry knows that if he brings it up now, it’ll all end in heartache. 

It feels more proactive to be protective. 

He’s just not sure which one of them he’s protecting. 

It’s been itching at him. Knowing that Zayn is so close. He finds himself more often than not in his garden, glancing towards any little noise that’s carried by the breeze over the hedge. Despite backing onto each other, their houses are spaced quite far apart, following the roll of the hill and the privacy that is expected in this neighbourhood. But Harry still finds himself looking out for lights when it gets dark, offering to do the dishes so he can stare out of the window above the sink.

Niall leaves him to it, oscillating wildly between dark brooding silences that Harry can’t make sense of and bursts of bright cheerfulness, like finding Harry in the garden to show him something Liam’s sent into the group, singing the chorus to Hotel California twice in the shower because it’s just came on shuffle, sitting tucked in the corner of Harry’s massive sofa and staring at the paint samples on the wall pretending to have an opinion on why it should be eggshell over duckegg.

“What if,” Harry says, reaching for a shirt to pull on. It’s still warm enough in the evening that he can sit and write shirtless. He does up the bottom two buttons. “We go out for one?”

Niall’s forehead crumples into a frown for a moment before quickly smoothing out again. He smiles then, small. “Yeah. I suppose we could.”

Harry catches the smile as Niall backs into the house again and finds himself returning it, the knot in his chest loosening. 

Harry drives, because he’s still not sure how Niall managed to find his way to the tattoo parlour the last day he was out in the car and he doesn’t quite trust Niall in the Jag.

The Arclight is a bit of an obvious choice but Harry hasn’t gone to enough cinemas in LA to know which one would be a good spot. It feels like there’s one on every street corner and he supposes it makes sense the further he crawls into Hollywood. 

Niall shrugs when Harry asks him what he wants to see, the screen that’s high up on the wall showing a long list of films that Harry’s mostly never heard of. He feels sort of out of the loop when he glances over the framed posters on the walls, all the promotional material exhibiting five stars and Jennifer Lawrence’s primed face. 

They’re running late to most of the showings so there’s no queue. It just means that they’ve probably missed all the trailers. Harry tries not to be disappointed -- sometimes they’re his favourite part.

The girl behind the glass looks a little bit bored, her eyebrows rising when Harry comes to a stop in front of her. “What do you recommend?” Harry asks and he can feel Niall shrink away beside him and mutter something under his breath. 

“What do you like?” the girls asks. She’s chewing gum, Harry can see it where she’s trying to hide it at the corner of her mouth, slightly off-white compared to her teeth. It reminds him that he needs to whiten his again. 

“Surprise me,” Harry says, flashing her a grin. 

He sees the way her eyes widen a bit before she quickly hides her scowl. It’s a testament to how off his game he is, if he can’t even charm her into a smile. 

Her eyes flick over to where Niall’s standing slightly off to the side, uselessly pretending he’s not with Harry. “What do _you_ like?”

“Nothing he does,” Niall mutters. The girl doesn’t laugh. Niall clears his throat. “Whatever started last and doesn’t have a million people in it.”

She nods, types at her keyboard before passing out two tickets through the perfectly circular hole in the plexiglass screen. “Enjoy,” she says, voice flat. 

“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” Niall reads from the tickets as they queue for popcorn. 

Harry frowns. “Sounds sad.”

“No,” Niall shakes his head. He taps the tickets against his chin, pulling the corner through the scratchy excuse of stubble he’s got growing there. “Sounds quirky. Right up your alley.”

He says it in the same tone as Harry had used when he thought it was sad. It makes Harry smile -- Niall’s faux annoyance can be cute sometimes. 

They split popcorn between them. “You can pay,” Niall tells him when it’s all rung up. “I’m just going to sleep for the next two hours.”

Harry shakes his head, not mentioning that it was already on him. “I think you’ll like it. Anyway, I’ll pay because it’s a date.”

“It’s not a date,” Niall hisses at him, half under his breath as they circle past the concession stand and head towards the screen. “And I’m going to be bored out of my skull. Sleep will be sweeter.” 

“It _is_ a date,” Harry says resolutely, stepping closer so they won’t be overheard by anyone sneaking out the door to the loo, and then because he can’t help himself. “I don’t know what’s going on between us right now. But I want to take you on a date.”

Niall’s step falters and when Harry glances up, Niall is looking right at him. He doesn’t say anything and Harry feels a quick flush at being so blunt but it’s telling that Niall doesn’t disagree. 

“You can buy ice cream after,” Harry says to lighten the mood and hands Niall the popcorn before they duck into the dark theatre. 

The film has already started but they’re able to find two seats sort of in the middle of a row near the back. Niall shuffles in first, keeping his head low. The narrator to the movie is talking at full speed and Harry already feels lost. 

It takes a moment to get comfy -- for Harry to shuffle out of his jacket, to find a good position in the chair with his forearm pressed to Niall’s on the rest between them and the perfect slouch to see the entire screen without hurting his neck. 

He takes a breath, finding it hard to concentrate and starts to wonder what Niall thinks is going between them. If there’s a reason this isn’t a date after all. 

Niall reaches over and punches Harry’s thigh. It stings for a moment, the weight of Niall’s fist sinking into his muscle. Harry grabs at his fist, holds it in the cage of his fingers. 

“Ron Swanson!” Niall says, in a too-loud whisper. The people beside them turn to look but Niall looks unperturbed, the bright light of the screen glancing his cheek bone. 

Harry snuffles a laugh into his wrist. “Told you you’d like it,” Harry manages once he’s caught his breath. Niall rolls his eyes, settling back into his chair. He offers Harry the popcorn, his other hand still trapped against Harry’s thigh. 

Harry ends up crying but Niall doesn’t take the piss out of him for it, just tangles his fingers with Harry’s and gives them a squeeze when the credits start to roll. 

“You didn’t fall asleep,” Harry says as the lights come up. His throat sounds a bit clogged up but he blames it on the popcorn. He sniffs and hopes his eyes aren’t too red. Around them, the theatre starts to empty out. Harry catches the way Niall ducks his head. Just in case. He feels like he should do the same, but it’s LA, he feels at home enough here that he figures he shouldn’t have to.

Niall gives his hand a final squeeze before they escape out into the lobby where the lights are up full and Harry has to squint. 

“Come on. Let’s go get ice cream,” Niall tells him, his eyes only a little bit glassy.

Harry drives again. Niall winds the window down as they pull up to a set of traffic lights, letting in soft warm air. It’s gotten fully dark while they were watching the movie -- everything now bathed in a clinical yellow light from the streetlights. There’s plenty of tourists still about, walking the streets in cut off shorts and flip flops. A few people are still lingering at the tables out on the street in front of the restaurants, warm light flooding the street from the huge windows and the parasols down after a long day in the sun. 

Harry finds a parking space a few shops down, underneath a huge awning of a tree in front of the pharmacy. He fights the urge to grab for Niall’s hand again. Niall looks good, his shirt reflecting the streetlights up underneath his chin, illuminating him from below. They’re walking close enough and no one would notice but it’s not worth the risk.

“Is this Harry’s-Hipster-Night-Out,” Niall asks as they stop in front of Salt & Straw. Harry smiles at him, knocks his knuckles into Niall’s arm. He can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin material of his shirt. 

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head and holding the door open for Niall. “It’s Show-Niall-A-Good-Time Night.”

Niall’s jaw drops when Harry winks at him and he turns to chastise him but the shop is tiny inside and busy for this time of the night so he doesn’t say anything. Harry takes it as a win. So much so that it’s hard not to get a bit excited at the prospect of maybe planning to slip into Rite Aid and grab a tube of lube. Just in case. That’s how most of his Date Nights end up. 

“Jesus Christ,” Niall mutters as he looks over the menu. Harry snorts. He’s been here before so flavours like Cream Cheese and Peppercorn Toffee or Black Olive Brittle don’t faze him. 

Niall goes for Honey Lavender and Harry gets Sea Salt Caramel for when Niall realises he doesn’t like Honey Lavender. At the last minute, Niall asks for a scoop of mint chocolate chip. “Peppermint cocoa,” Harry corrects him, swallowing the sting in his throat when his subconscious treacherously brings Zayn to mind. 

Niall rolls his eyes. “This is so LA.”

Niall pays -- as promised -- and they find a seat outside on a little wooden table right on the street. The rickety wooden chairs remind him of the old garden furniture in his mum’s back garden that they had bought one summer’s day in B&Q. One chair always rocked on the wonky patio slabs and his mum would tell him off for balancing on the hind legs. 

Harry kicks his chair off the ground, rocks back onto two legs and balances with his hand on the window behind him. Niall doesn’t chastise him but it doesn’t feel as daring as it used to.

“Come on,” Niall says, lifting his spoon. “You’ll melt in a minute.”

Harry lands onto four feet with a thud. It jars up his jaw and rattles in his teeth. He watches as Niall takes a spoonful of Honey Lavender and holds it in his mouth for a moment, laughing when Niall spins the bowl around so that side is facing Harry instead. 

“You can take the man out of Mullingar,” Harry says leadingly. Niall kicks the side of his foot under the table and leaves it there, his ankle pressed against Harry’s. 

“You looking forward to going home?” Harry asks through a mouthful of lilac soft serve, thinking of Niall’s dad and the narrow single bed in his old bedroom. But that’s all changed now, the last time Harry was there to stay was years ago. Home is London. Like Harry’s is LA.

Niall shrugs, sucking caramel ice cream off the spoon. “Sort of. I’ve got a few things to do in London. It’ll be boring and I’ll get no writing done --” he frowns --”The charity thing should be fun though.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Harry says, knocking his spoon off Niall’s. He’s gone quiet and it’s the only thing that Harry can think of to say. “It’s nice having you in the house.”

Niall snorts softly, spooning half melted mint choc chip into his mouth, it’s the only flavour left in their bowl, both of them having eaten around it. 

“You can come with me you know?”

Harry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t feel that pull to London anymore, not in the same way as he used to when he was younger and yearning for something bigger. He tries to ignore the tiny betraying voice at the back of his head that’s reminding him that _Zayn’s in LA_. 

Niall shrugs, his shoulder jerking too sharply to be completely natural. “It’s only a few days.”

The air between them goes stilted again. 

“I hate mint choc chip,” Harry mumbles, cold flooding his mouth. It feels too crisp and clean against his tongue. 

Niall squints his eyes but doesn’t properly look up from the bowl. “Peppermint cocoa,” he corrects quietly. 

Harry snorts. “Tastes like toothpaste.”

“Tastes like Zayn.”

Harry tenses at the way Niall says his name, flat and devoid of any emotion at all. Harry spoons the rest of the ice cream into his mouth, hoping it will douse the kindling guilt in his belly. 

Niall finally looks up at him, his eyes intense like he’s daring Harry to say something. Harry nods, looks away again. 

He could tell him now. It’s the perfect opportunity. 

_I’ve seen him. I’ve talked to him. I have no idea what we’re doing._

But he keeps his mouth shut, presses his ankle back into Niall’s and waits for his expression to break into a soft smile. 

*

It’s late when they get back, Harry taking the long route home so he could spend more time with Niall without the opportunity of either of them getting distracted. Niall hadn’t complained, his head turned so he could stare out the passenger window and soak in the scenery. 

To Harry’s relief, Niall doesn’t immediately leave him. He leads the way through Harry’s house into the living room, clapping his hands as if it’s now second nature. 

Harry sets to work in the kitchen, fetching them drinks as Niall fiddles with the music controls on Harry’s fancy remote control the size of an iPad. 

Harry’s already grinning when Niall finally chooses a song, the music filtering through the speakers on the ground level of Harry’s house so it’s as loud in the kitchen as it is in the living room.

“I’ve got a peaceful --” Harry croons as he comes to meet Niall, setting the beers on the table. --“easy feeling.”

Niall laughs brightly and walking towards the sofa. Harry grabs his hands and pulls him into a dance. A laid back beat like this always reminds him of trying to line dance with Taylor in her kitchen, the cats under their feet but Niall falls in with the harmony --”oh but she can’t take you away --” and all Harry can think of is Niall. 

They rock together, Niall jerking his elbow out so Harry has to twist under it. He laughs, breathless, losing half of the lyric. Niall carries it on when he rights himself, his warm fingers tangled in Harry’s hand. 

“This is something Bobby would attempt to dance to,” Niall snorts as Harry loops his arm around his waist and pulls him close, both of them rocking in time to the guitar. 

“Like this?” he asks, his breath fanning over Niall’s face. He can feel each spot where they’re pressed together. 

Niall’s smile turns sweet and slow. “No,” he laughs, ducking his head and pressing closer until they’re just turning on the spot, chest to chest. “He’s more of the naff granda-at-a-wedding type of dancer.”

“Suits him,” Harry says half heartedly. As much as he loves to talk about Bobby, he doesn’t tonight. He wants to soak in as much of Niall as he can while he’s got him.

Niall huffs a quiet laugh, turns his cheek against Harry’s shoulder. It’s not long until his gentle humming turns to him singing along again. Harry joins in quietly, his voice rough with trying to sing so quietly and low. Niall squeezes at his waist, rocks them slower until the two of them are barely swaying to the music. 

Niall’s been sleeping in his bed since he’s got here but somehow this feels more intimate. He’s missed having him this close -- close enough to feel the heat of his skin, the thump of his pulse.

Harry sweeps his free hand up Niall’s spine, feeling the way he shivers against him, the way his breath drops out on a word and then picks up again to sing the rest of the lyrics. They rotate in the middle of Harry’s living room, the lamps glowing softly around them and the glass doors to the garden pitch black, reflecting back so Harry can see the shape of them pressed together as if they were in front of a mirror, their features blurred so he doesn’t know when one of them ends and the other begins.

Niall looks smaller than he feels tucked in close to Harry, his face pressed close to his throat. The back of his neck is warm, not enough to work up a sweat but Harry presses his thumb to Niall’s hairline anyway, feels his way across it until he can slip his fingers into the soft layers of hair at the back of Niall’s skull. 

“Niall,” Harry mumbles, turning his head so his mouth brushes over Niall’s skin. Niall squeezes his fingers in response, their joined hands still held up in the air as if Harry’s leading them in a proper ballroom. “Was this a proper date?” 

Niall snuffles a laugh, sings the last few bars of the song quietly as he looks up at him. His eyes are warm, soft and clear. The skin looks dry on his chin, a spot coming up at the side of his nose where it’s beginning to peel. Niall doesn’t lean in to kiss him until the guitar is fading into nothing. 

Harry’s missed this even more, he realises as he presses into the heat of Niall’s mouth. Niall sighs, his tongue wet as it slips into Harry’s mouth and Harry groans for it, dropping Niall’s hand to clutch at his hip tighter. 

Niall’s fingers tangle at the hair at Harry’s nape, his knuckles going tight around a handful and it’s just like the first time they kissed, both of them so young and bright eyed with no idea what was to come. 

They had been buried under blankets, Harry supposed to be on voice rest but Niall letting him away with whispered commentary on whatever they were watching on the TV -- Harry forgets now what programme, just knows that Niall had stayed behind to keep him company when he was miserable and alone. 

Now, in front of him, Niall nearly gives him the same sort of smile-y frown as he had the first time. Like he was trying to work out what had happened, if he should be embarrassed or pleased about it but his face is so much older. Harry knows it so much better. 

Niall reaches for him, his fingers warm as they trace over Harry’s skin to feel out the barely there stubble near his ear and up towards the dips under his eyes. Harry goes still, his bones and joints locking together under Niall’s touch. Niall’s smile grows bigger, his thumb pressing into the ridge of his nose. 

“Love you, y’know?” Niall says. Easy as that. 

It’s nearly bruising across Harry’s chest. Warm and welcome but tinged with a sharpness where he’s pressing at it. Poking where he’s already hurting. 

It’s too quiet now that the music has stopped, Harry can hear every laboured breath they’re making. The buzz of the lights and static from the speakers fading into nothing.

“Come to bed,” Harry says and his body is aching for it. For Niall to stay and kiss him and let Harry press close again. 

To let him in again.

Maybe it’ll bring them back onto the same page, a fresh start, somehow figuring everything out that they can’t with words alone.

Niall’s forehead creases a little before he agrees, twining their hands together again and leading up the stairs. 

Niall helps him lift his shirt up over his head, Harry’s fingers skimming the hem along the soft skin of his back. They go slow, Harry stripping his own shirt over his head afterwards so when they press together again, it’s bare skin to bare skin. 

Harry can feel his nipples harden, prick in the cool conditioned air of his bedroom. Niall’s skin is warm, but he shivers as Niall’s hands sweep up his sides, fingers pressing along his ribs until he can reach Harry’s nipples with his thumb.

Harry gasps when Niall brushes over them, his hand tightening at Niall’s bicep. 

“Too easy,” Niall murmurs, his mouth turning up into a smile. Harry laughs, feeling the tension between them break. He presses forward again to pull Niall into a kiss. It’s somehow easier to undo Niall’s jeans with his eyes closed, Niall’s hands falling back to Harry’s hips. 

He hesitates when he’s got Niall’s jeans pulled down to his thighs, brushing his hands up over the soft cotton of Niall’s boxers as he deliberates whether to pull them down too. Niall hums into his mouth, rolling his hips up into Harry’s front. He can feel where he’s half hard but there’s no rush to it, no urgency like Harry would’ve expected from doing this again after so long not. 

Niall bites at Harry’s lip impatiently, pulling away to stare at him. His eyes look clear still, bright in the overhead light. 

Niall turns to the bed, flopping down onto it as he kicks his jeans off his ankles. Harry grips the ankle of one and helps him tug them down. Niall laughs at the ceiling, twisting until he’s in the middle of the bed, the duvet bunched below his neck. 

His eyes trace down Harry’s body as Harry pulls off his trousers and underwear all in one swoop, a hand reaching out to brush across the width of his thigh when Harry kneels onto the bed beside him. 

The kissing between them turns easy and gentle, Niall rolling on top, a knee pushed between Harry’s thighs. Harry keeps a hand on his arse, his fingers pressed into the soft, stretched material of Niall’s underwear. The other settles against Niall’s jaw, feeling the way it tenses and stretches as he kisses his way down Harry’s neck. 

Niall doesn’t push for more and Harry gets it. Gets that he’s trying to map out Harry for just himself. Adjusting to how there’s only two of them in bed this time and not three. 

Something sparks low in the back of Harry’s mind -- that dull reminder that they’re all still adjusting. 

Harry can’t read the look in Niall’s eye when he pulls away, his mouth pink and wet. It makes something twist in Harry’s gut, makes him pull Niall closer to him but it’s like water through his fingertips, Niall going up on his arms until he’s like a bridge over him. There’s something dark there -- desire -- but it’s overtaken by how Niall’s mouth presses into a thin line, his cheeks just slightly pink. Niall’s confliction is nearly visceral, Harry’s stomach turning.

“Niall?” Harry whispers, his mouth too dry. Niall ducks his head, his fringe falling in front of his eyes. 

“I--” Niall starts, his voice rough. 

Harry reaches out to put a hand to his flank, half steadying, half of comfort. Niall’s arms are shaking from trying to keep his weight off Harry. His face is frozen in a wide-eyed stare, his jaw clenched slightly. 

“Niall?” Harry asks gently and he drops at Harry’s touch, his face pushing into the pillow beside Harry’s ear. Harry can hear him gasp, his body pressed tight against Harry’s side. He apologises quietly, his mouth close to Harry’s ear. 

Harry blinks at the ceiling, stomach in knots. His heart is a wild thump in his chest that has nothing to do with how turned on he is. 

“Sorry --” Niall gasps, his face still tucked away so Harry can’t see him properly. He’s breathing hard, his shoulders rising fast in the corner of Harry’s vision. “I -- I--”

“Don’t apologise,” Harry says, turning his head until his nose is against Niall’s temple. “You don’t have to apologise.”

Harry still can’t see his face but they’re pressed so close that he can hear the hitch of his throat, the rough swallow. Harry’s mind races, the sting of disappointment and rejection swallowed by worry and concern and unsurity. 

“I know,” Harry breathes, the only thing that comes to his mind. his mouth pressed against Niall’s damp hairline. Harry’s hand sweeps up Niall’s side, his fingers pressing into the muscles of his back until he finally feels Niall relax, his body going like butter against him. 

“I know.”

*

When Harry wakes the light is still on, useless with how the Californian sunshine is bleeding through his blinds. 

And the other side of the bed is empty.

| brinjal | 

Niall’s been gone all of 12 hours.

Harry wanders restlessly around his house, swims a few half-hearted laps of his pool and does his washing. Niall’s left most of his clothes and, Harry suspects, is away wearing something of Harry’s but he can’t tell what. 

He’s left other things as well -- a trailing phone charger from the plug beside his side of the bed, a pair of brand new Nike trainers under the coffee table in the living room that he didn’t have when he arrived, his fancy Armani watch sitting beside the sink, two toothbrushes still in the cup. 

Wasted energy buzzes under Harry’s skin as he throws Niall’s soft grey boxers in with his own into the machine. It doesn’t even make a noise as he switches it on and for the first time in a while he misses the rattle of his mum’s kitchen when the washing machine went into a spin, so loud that Harry’s jaw would rattle too. 

He types out a text to Niall. Stares at it. Deletes it. 

He showers, hangs their wet pants over the radiator in the hallway that’s never on, eats two halves of a grapefruit over the sink with the juice rolling down his wrist. Out the window, the red slate tiles of next door burn in the afternoon sun.

Types another message and sends it. 

From there, he paces. Sits down to write but doesn’t get very far. He contemplates going to the gym but for once, pounding out his frustration on the treadmill doesn’t appeal to him.

Twenty minutes pass. Niall doesn’t reply. 

Harry sets his phone down on the coffee table, the case warm from where Harry’s been holding it in his hands and checking it every few seconds. The screen stays resolutely black. 

Harry pulls on Niall’s new trainers, wiggling his toes against the new fabric. The soles squeak on the marble floor as he walks to the front door, leaving his phone behind.

He decides to go for a run, his t-shirt loose enough and his shorts completely inappropriate. He pretends to himself that he’s actually stretching out his muscles as he walks down the drive, one hand pulled up behind his back. He pulls his heel to his arse as his gates slowly slide apart, rides out the burn in his hamstring. 

He’ll just take a run around the block. Nice and easy. He loosens his neck, shakes his shoulders, jumps on the balls of his feet and walks straight next door.

“I’m going on a run,” Harry announces as soon as Zayn opens the door pushing past any awkwardness. 

Zayn buzzed him in the gates, he knows it’s him. 

“Congratulations,” Zayn replies, leaning on the door with a hand on his hip. 

Harry glances down, takes in his skinny knees beneath his shorts and the way Zayn’s toes are curling on the edge of the welcome mat. “Do you want to come?”

Zayn snorts and steps away from the door, the invitation to follow unspoken. 

It’s starting to get a little bit cooler outside and Harry shivers once he’s inside the white, marbled shade of Zayn’s foyer. 

There’s music on in the kitchen, the breeze from the open doors in the living room out into the garden. His house isn’t as open plan as Harry’s cavernous front room so Harry isn’t sure who lurks in the other rooms of the house. 

They nearly circle each other, Zayn’s gaze caught up in Harry’s as they stare each other out. Harry can feel anticipation burning through his gut, nearly acidic. 

“Thought you were going on a run?” Zayn asks when Harry finally breaks and takes a step towards him. He’s relaxed though, expecting it. He leans against the wall, tips his head so Harry can see the jut of his chin, the angle of his cheekbones.

Harry can smell the hint of worn aftershave, musk heavy on his tongue. Zayn looks so smug that Harry’s desperation would be an embarrassment if he had the awareness to care.

“Thought it would do me some good,” Harry says, quietly, letting his voice drop down. He can play Zayn too. “Burn off some energy.”

Zayn snorts softly, his mouth turning into a wicked grin. For a moment, his expression is nearly fond and familiar, like he knows Harry inside out, can read him like a book. 

Harry kisses him before he can say anything else stupid. It tapers some of the restlessness fizzing inside his head. Zayn’s hand coming up to his shoulder and curling in the loose sleeve of his t-shirt. It nearly chokes him where it tugs the collar on his Adam’s apple. 

This is what he’s been craving, something base deep down in side has been waiting for this. Zayn tugs again on his clothes and Harry wants rid of them, wants to be pressed skin to skin to Zayn’s chest. He wants to feel his hands and his tongue and the hot and shiver of someone pressed so close. 

Zayn breaks away from Harry’s mouth roughly and for a brief moment, Harry fears that he’s going to tell them to stop --

Because they should stop. This is wrong on some level. 

\-- but he just breathes raggedly into Harry’s mouth. “Upstairs,” he finally says, his hands tugging at Harry to follow him up the impressive staircase. 

Zayn’s bedroom looks bare, the walls still the same white from when it was up for sale. The bed is rumpled but it still feels unlived in, the wardrobe open and empty. Harry has just enough time to take in the open suitcase lying on the floor before Zayn’s pulling him down onto the bed. 

Harry gasps, sprawling out over Zayn’s lap, twisting onto his side to try and kiss him while Zayn’s hands are sliding down to grope at him over his shorts, feeling out the length of his dick, already half hard through the material of his shorts.

“Fuck, please,” Harry gasps, bucking up into the touch. All the noise in his head fading into white, just the sound of his own breathing and Zayn. Zayn kissing down over his jaw. Zayn’s hands on his ribs.

It’s familiar and like a faded memory all at once. Harry doesn’t have to overthink how their lips move together, their mouths in sync. Harry arches up again, rubbing himself against Zayn’s front until he gives in and rolls his body against him, just enough friction to make them both light in a gasp. 

He had memorised the sound of Zayn long ago. Lingered with every touch, counted every breath, listened to every moan from the bed next to his at night. It was easier when all the excitement and bravado had spilled over one night and Harry was reaching for Zayn, just to find him reaching back. It was better to know that he was making those noises for _him,_ to know what he really sounded like. 

Zayn rolls them, one hand dragging at Harry’s waistband and the other cupping around Harry’s wrist to stretch his body out wide, stopping him from reaching for Zayn, for rushing them forward. 

Harry pushes his forehead against the pillows, tries to remember how to breathe. 

Harry feels it already -- the urgency, the desperation. It’s like he’s been half way there all day, bubbling under his skin as he washed clothes and paced his halls. He thinks of how easy it was last night with Niall, how easy it used to be, and he groans, opening his eyes seeking out Zayn so he doesn’t have to see Niall on the back of his eyelids.

“Zayn.” 

Zayn grunts, his other hand trailing up Harry’s stomach. “‘m here.”

Harry can feel it in every inch of skin he touches, Zayn’s fingers trailing over his stomach and side, a palm over his hip that makes him twist, his dick pressing wet against the seam of his shorts. Zayn huffs a breath against Harry’s ear, his tongue skimming the edge. 

They’re caught together, tangled until they’re all hook and loop.

Harry groans, twisting again so he can get the momentum to roll onto his front and a knee under him, his arse rising up into the air. He presses his face into the mattress and saviours the black behind his eyes, his mouth pressed into the sheets. 

“Fuck sake, Haz,” Zayn laughs, pulling at the elastic of Harry’s shorts. It snaps against his back, fabric stretched with the way he’s knelt over and Harry groans, rolling his hips up into the air. “You’re fucking shameless.”

“Come on,” Harry pants, scrabbling his hand behind, his fingers catching in Zayn’s shirt. He pulls him close with the loose side of it, buttons catching along his rings. Zayn’s hands snap to his hip to steady them and he leans down, his body pressing into Harry’s as he licks behind his ear. Harry jerks, drops back, both of them unbalanced as they roll across the mattress, arms and legs flailing. 

They’re messy. Harry kisses him as if he’s dying of thirst and draws him in, fingers twisted in Zayn’s mop of hair, the other jammed under his waistband. “Come on, I want to see.”

“So bloody needy sometimes,” Zayn comments as Harry chases his hand, desperate for friction. There’s something in the familiarity of it, how Zayn knows how he gets, what he likes. That they’ve done this before and maybe won’t again.

Harry bares his teeth, bites down on telling him how much he missed him, how long it’s been. He sits up, his arse on the edge of the mattress to pull off his shirt and Zayn grins toothily back, scrambling to strip naked too.

“No marks,” Harry says, half on reflex when Zayn sets his teeth to skin. He thinks of Niall finding them briefly before he pushes Niall out of his head. He couldn’t imagine the hurt in Niall’s face if he found out that way.

This is about thinking about something different, it’s about emptying his mind to all that altogether. 

Zayn’s hesitates so Harry stretches out, trails his hands down Zayn’s sides to hook under his arms and pull him close. His skin tastes the same, hot with sweat. 

“Have you and Niall --,” Zayn asks on the end of a gasp. Harry pauses, his lips pressed to the cut of Zayn’s pec. Harry’s trying to forget all about Niall but it’s something that they seem to be on the same wavelength, Zayn thinking of him too. 

Zayn sounds hesitant -- breathless -- but it might just be how they’re grinding against each other now, both of them moving in familiar counterpart. --“kept at it?”

It was never a jealousy thing. 

They had all worked out quite quickly that they were fine if two paired up without the other. It rarely happened at the start, the three of them given ample opportunity with the nature of tour to be together whenever they wanted. But it would happen once or twice as time stretched on, as breaks grew busier and the logistics of three becoming more difficult. 

Niall would be coy and shy about it but would give his whole self over to Harry in bed when it was just them two, laughing and wriggling across bed sheets in London, Tokyo, Milan. 

Zayn would always ask. After. As if he wanted a blow by blow, wanted to be a voyeur into his own relationship. 

Harry was always all too happy to oblige. Watching as something sparked in Zayn’s eyes, revelling in how his hands gripped tighter as he murmured a running commentary. He never asked what sort of answer Zayn would get out of Niall. That part never mattered to Harry. 

“We’ve --” Harry answers, his voice already rough. He isn’t really sure how to answer that question. He’s not sure what they are now, what the fuck they’re doing. He thinks wildly of Niall’s mouth. Niall’s hands. The taste of his skin last night as he had sucked faint mint off his tongue. 

How he’d pulled away. 

But it’s Zayn’s hands that distract him back to the present, one sweeping up to cradle his jaw. Harry drops his mouth open, tongue darting out to lick at the pad of Zayn’s thumb. 

He watches Zayn watching him through half-lidded eyes -- always the voyeur. 

“Yeah,” Harry answers wildly, lying. Feeling something pop inside at the way Zayn narrows his eyes, spies a new spark of jealousy burning in them for a sharp moment. 

Harry closes his eyes. Licks his lips. “Yes.” Gasps. Rolls up into him. Puts on a fucking show. “Fuck. Yes.”

Zayn’s hand slips into Harry’s hair, his nails raking over the heat of his scalp. Harry hisses, feels the sharpness of his teeth against his tongue. Zayn knows that it’s Niall that likes that the best, not Harry. Harry wonders fleetingly if he wishes it was Niall that had stumbled into the house and not him. 

“Has Niall --” Zayn asks, like Harry wasn’t stoking the fire with some concocted story to make him jealous. Zayn trails off but Harry hears the unasked question in his voice. The _has Niall asked about me?_ It smarts a little, even though he’s used to it, that Zayn’s asking about Niall rather than Harry. Especially given that Harry is the one on his back in his bed. 

Harry ignores the question, ducking his head to bite and lick across Zayn’s chest and belly. 

“No marks,” Zayn says, but the sarcasm is lost at the end of a moan.

Harry curls his fingers under one of Zayn’s knees, stretches it up so Zayn rolls onto his back and Harry can fit between his thighs. Zayn doesn’t say anything else until Harry’s got one foot hanging off the bed and his face buried between his legs, his mouth trailing down until he can fit his tongue into the space behind the weight of Zayn’s balls. 

“Harry,” Zayn groans above him, his hand batting at Harry’s ear to push him away. “I’ll come.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Harry says against the base of Zayn’s dick. He mouths at his skin, bites the inside of his thigh until Zayn’s yanking him up by the elbow up to kiss him instead. 

“D’you not wanna fuck?” Zayn asks him in a jumble of words pressed into the heat of Harry’s neck. They’re sweating, Harry can feel it where they slide against each other. He feels rock hard, aching to come. It’s too much stopping and starting. Too much teasing. Stop. Start. 

Harry rolls his hips. “You old romantic.” 

Zayn bites at his skin, sharp enough this time to bruise and Harry bucks him off, rolling away. He knows Zayn well enough that he’ll have lube and condoms in the drawer by the bed. Even in hotel rooms he had them ready to hand. Zayn hasn’t been living here long enough for clutter to accumulate in his drawer so Harry finds them easily, rolling back into the middle of the bed to reach for Zayn.

Zayn opens up easily around Harry’s long fingers, his legs splaying up and out. He’s loud. Harry used to love it, the thought of whoever was next door hearing him, hearing what Harry did to him. In the morning, Zayn would get elbowed and pinched at by Liam or Louis and Harry would sink into the back of the sofa, pretending that it didn’t spark a heat in his belly to watch Zayn laugh them off, fob them off with a story about whoever he had persuaded to come back to the hotel with. 

“So tight,” Harry mutters because he can’t help himself sometimes. If he were here, Niall would laugh, his face pink and bright and unable to help himself either. He’d probably be fighting with him for space -- either for a better view of Harry’s fingers disappearing inside Zayn or to slide a helping finger in himself. 

Harry closes his eyes, tries not to lean too much to the side as if there was a third person there to catch him. His absence aches.

Zayn doesn’t laugh, just bites at his lip and draws a hand up over his eyes like it’s already too much. Harry ducks down, licks across the hot line of his hip, dodging the knock of Zayn’s dick against his chin altogether. 

“Fuck, Zayn,” Harry whispers against his skin. He’s missed this so much, feels a longing in his bones for this to never stop. 

“Yeah,” Zayn agrees, his head nodding against the duvet. “Now, let’s go.”

Harry scrapes his teeth over Zayn’s hip and pats along the mattress for the forgotten condom tangled in the sheets. He drags his other hand up over Zayn’s balls, squeezes around his cock. It’s so familiar, Harry grunts, rolling his forehead against the hot skin of Zayn’s abdomen. 

“_Harry_,” Zayn warns. 

“No, wait,” Harry whines, forgetting about the condom and feeding Zayn’s dick into his mouth instead. 

Zayn’s body bows, his knee coming up until Harry’s body is caught between his legs. He fucks his hips up until Harry chokes, the head of Zayn’s dick hitting the back of his throat. 

“Harry,” Zayn moans, his hand clutching at Harry’s hair. “Fuck, Harry, you --” 

Harry breathes through his nose, feels the thud of his heart and the press of his cock against the duvet below him. Zayn’s thighs tighten and he’s caught in a vice, all caught and weighed down. When he closes his eyes the rest of the room filters out until Harry can only process the weight of Zayn’s dick against his tongue and the feel of his sweaty skin under his palm, the swell of his belly with each shuddering breath he takes.

Harry swallows carefully, Zayn’s sharp cry ringing in his ears and he’s coming, his mouth too full and not full enough.

*

“Breakfast?” Zayn asks easily when Harry wakes up. 

He’s standing at the end of the bed, a cup ensconced between his hands and wearing nothing underneath an oversized silk shirt, nearly like a dressing gown. 

Harry blinks blearily, trying not to feel prickly over Zayn watching him sleep. He stretches, feels the sheet shift over the jut of his hips.

Zayn smirks, his eyes drifting down over his sprawled body like it’s on display. Over his shoulder, a lamp shines and Harry huffs a breath, disorientated. 

“In bed?” Harry asks, his voice still rough with sleep. He has no idea how long he’s been out, the sky dark through the window. 

Zayn grins, his face twisting up one side more than the other. “Don’t think so. Don’t want crumbs up my arse, thanks.”

Harry shrugs, feeling the pillows move underneath him. He reaches down to lazily press against where he’s nearly half hard against his thigh. “Each to their own.”

Zayn snorts and shakes his head. His “Fuck, I’ve missed you,” is so flippant as he walks out the door that Harry nearly misses it. 

He wants to rewind the moment and play it over and over again. To hear Zayn admit that again because Harry knows it was a slip of the tongue, that if he asked him to say it again, he wouldn’t. 

I’ve missed you. I missed all the time wasted between us. _I shouldn’t have left._

Harry’s pulls on his shorts but his bare feet are cold on the wood at the top of the stairs. He has to shake himself. Zayn will _never_ say it. He’s building himself up for a bigger fall if he keeps thinking that way.

But in some ways, Harry he can’t help it. Can’t tamp the warm feeling the thought brings, can’t quell the longing for some sort of explanation, confession, vindication. 

“We can order pizza,” Zayn offers, his hip holding open the door to his fridge. Under his arm, Harry can see that it’s devoid of food, bottles of water and beer taking up most of the shelf space. 

“What time is it?” Harry asks, his elbow propping his head up on the breakfast bar. His head still feels like it’s full of cotton wool, half asleep, half still in bed with Zayn wrapped tight around him. 

“Late,” Zayn answers quietly, he’s scrolling through his phone, his bottom lip caught between his thumb and forefinger. The sleeve of his dressing gown is slipping and Harry reaches across to gently pull it up over shoulder. 

It’s dark outside and Harry wonders how long they were asleep. The rest of the house is quiet too but Harry knows that it isn’t empty. 

“We should make something,” Harry murmurs, glancing around Zayn’s kitchen. There’s a stack of unopened post in the fruit bowl and Harry itches to open it. Harry spots a long envelope, the shadow of a logo that turns his stomach. Just thick enough to be a contract.

Harry looks away quickly.

Zayn flashes him a smile, goes back to scrolling. “It’s Sunday,” Zayn says, his voice quiet. “Well --” he rolls his eyes. “Nearly. We could do a roast?”

Harry cocks his head. “In the middle of the night?”

Zayn cracks a smile. “A midnight feast.”

Harry snorts but feels himself smiling. It’s hardly the worst they’ve got up to in the middle of the night but it reminds Harry of the nocturnal weeks after tour or in the early days after X Factor, ramped up from adrenaline and weeks of keeping topsy-turvy schedules. They’d sleep all day and be wired long into the night. When Harry got his test, he’d track miles round the city, mapping the streets that he never got the chance to see during the day crammed in the back of their security detail. 

Zayn would smoke out the window if he had come along but mostly it was Niall flicking through old vintage albums, stuff that he had lingering memories of his dad playing long ago. _Wait, wait, what ‘bout this one? Do you know this?_ It would feel like they were the only ones awake, ensconced in the dark of the car. _Do you think we could ever sound like this?_

Anything felt possible, all dreams and teenage bravado. Eventually, Harry had channelled it all into writing, his eyes gritty over a notebook until he fell back into the swing of getting up early for the gym. The other boys had found other ways of treating the insomnia. 

Harry looks for something to distract himself. “You phoning home?”

Zayn raises his eyebrows. 

“Sunday,” Harry explains and Zayn breaks into a smile, as if was surprised that Harry remembered his weekly ritual. Harry feels himself pull up short at the assumption, it rubbing the wrong way. 

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs, his eyes flick to the window and Harry sluggishly works out the time difference. “Later though. Tomorrow.”

The air grows stilted between them for a moment -- more stilted than it already was. Harry wishes suddenly he was wearing more clothes, the AC in Zayn’s kitchen just a touch too cool. His skin prickles with it but he isn’t sure where to go -- to Zayn? Back to bed?

“I’ll make myself scarce then,” Harry mumbles, his lips feeling too big. Harry licks at them, the phantom taste of Zayn still on his tongue.

Zayn shrugs. His expression still calm but his elbow jerks, letting slip how nervous he is. “Still plenty of time.”

Harry stares at him for a moment. Plenty of time to do what? 

There’s that urge deep down in Harry’s gut to stay with him. To drink in as much time as possible with him now that he’s here. To pull him back into the warm bed upstairs and devour him whole.

“We could go out,” Zayn says, looking uncomfortable. 

Harry raises his eyebrows because that sounds like a horrible idea, something so unlike Zayn even when they weren’t keeping this a secret. 

Harry swallows. Maybe _he’s_ the only one that thinks of this as a secret. 

“To get groceries,” Zayn clarifies, reading Harry’s face. He breaks into a smile and it’s infectious, Harry grinning too. 

“We can see what I’ve got,” Harry says, tipping his head in the direction of his house up the hill. “We can do dinner at mine. No one will bother us.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. 

Harry feels his face heat. “Just thinking of your guests, you know. We wouldn’t bother them either.”

“You could just meet them, you know?” Zayn says, his voice going a little more rigid. 

Harry takes a steadying breath, he doesn’t want to get into an argument about this. They spent so much time in the band arguing about exactly this. This assumption that they had to blend every inch of their lives together, to like the same things, to hold the same interests. To make nice with everyone’s friends when they hardly ever saw them again. 

Zayn rolls his eyes when Harry doesn’t say anything. “Is there no one staying at yours?”

“He’s in London,” Harry answers, without really thinking. 

Zayn snaps his mouth shut, breathes in sharply. They stare at each other for a long moment, sweat beading at Harry’s hairline. He hadn’t even told Zayn that Niall had been staying with him for the past week and it’s the first time Harry considers that Zayn didn’t know. How could he?

Harry feels like he’s given something away, feels a little more vulnerable and open standing in front of him in his empty kitchen. The dark windows along the wall just reflect the kitchen back at them and Harry wonders who can see in from the hills around them. Harry can see Zayn’s roof but the angle of the slope obscures the windows, Harry isn’t sure about the rest of them.

“I have to paint my living room,” Harry says to break the growing tension between them. “Need to get back, anyway.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Does it not get old always complaining about that shit?”

“I _am_ redecorating,” Harry says, too hyped up for it to come out anything other than defensively. “Why do none of you ever believe me?”

Zayn huffs a laugh, finally sliding his phone into the pocket of the shirt. He leans back against the island. He looks lean, his shirt hanging open at his hip and he looks a bit like an asshole, just watching Harry across the kitchen half naked. 

Harry feels the urge to laugh despite the irritation still in his bones. “I’m indecisive, okay?” 

Zayn snorts. “Clearly,” he murmurs under his breath but he gives in, standing up off the counter to smile at Harry. “I’ll go get dressed.”

*

The tightness in Harry’s shoulders disappears as soon as he’s over his own threshold. It’s short lived, however, when he picks up his phone and sees there’s still nothing from Niall. 

Zayn wanders around Harry’s house like he’s never been there, poking his nose in nooks and crannies in the living room and staring out the windows into the garden.

Harry doesn’t have all the fixings for a roast but they manage to gather something up, both of them too impatient and eating it straight out of pan. 

Zayn grins at him, his elbows on the counter so his back is bowed and Harry abandons their dinner to kiss him up against the cupboards, his hands going for Zayn’s flies.

“I think your pool is better than mine,” Zayn complains, a hand on a naked hip, later when they’ve finally made it to the living room. They haven’t got dressed again, Harry hadn’t seen the need. 

“It’s not,” Harry assures him from the sofa, fighting to keep his eyes open.

It’s so late that it’s early, the sun peeking up over the hill. Harry’s normally up at this time but he feels the grit behind his eyelids, his body clock shifting out of sync. They should sleep but Harry doesn’t want to waste a moment, doesn’t want to miss anything. 

Zayn turns, his body in shadow with the way the sun is starting to creep through the French doors. Harry traces the angles of his face, the jut of his hips, the weight of his dick.

Harry lifts a hand, beckons him closer. Zayn tastes warm, his tongue hot when he kisses him but his fingers are cold when they dance up over Harry’s side. Harry pulls him down on top of him on the sofa, lets his weight push them both into the cushions. 

“We should put it to a test,” Zayn says, raising his eyebrows when he pulls away from Harry. It makes them shift against each other, Zayn’s hip rubbing into Harry’s, making them both breathe out sharply. 

They probably should do something other than kiss each other senseless, Harry surmises, his hands in Zayn’s hair but he can’t think of anything that doesn’t mean they have to separate. 

“I’ve shorts up stairs.”

“No,” Zayn groans, leaning down to kiss him quickly. His hand snakes down to give Harry a bit of a grope. “We can go skinny dip.”

“I’m not rubbing after-sun on your sunburnt dick,” Harry warns him, sliding to the edge of the sofa. He thinks of the neighbours, the scandal. 

Zayn sighs, rolling back into the cushions with a grin. The sofa seems to swallow him up, Zayn fitting into the groove of Harry’s body perfectly. “But you’d kiss it better.”

Harry laughs and leaves him there, basking in the glow of the rising sun and his own smug joke. He’s right, Harry would.

Upstairs is just how he left it and Harry pauses in the doorway of the bedroom, feeling like it’s been weeks since he’s been there instead of just a night. He pulls on the edge of the duvet to straighten it out, tidies a few stray t-shirts and shoes into their rightful place. 

He folds a pair of Niall’s jeans and tucks them into the wardrobe along with Harry’s own, his throat feeling dry as he pulls on a pair of swimming trunks. Harry tries not to think too much about what Niall is doing right this moment back in London -- ignoring Harry’s messages might not be a very strenuous affair -- and lifts another pair for Zayn. 

Objectively, he knows there’s something wrong with what he’s doing. That he should be honest with Niall and tell him. That he should be more angry with Zayn. That Zayn shouldn’t be lying on his sofa downstairs with no plans on leaving anytime soon. 

It could be easy. Just pretend the past twenty four hours didn’t happen. It wouldn’t be the first time that Harry’s pretended a sexual encounter hasn’t happened. 

Harry could go and kick him out but he knows he won’t. Harry looks down, automatically pulling out a third pair before he has to remind himself that Niall isn’t there. Harry doesn’t even think the three of them ever went swimming together since those days, long ago, when they used to play in the freezing pool at the bungalow, Zayn always begging off saying he couldn’t do it. 

Harry had thought he just didn’t want to get wet, all the boys laughing about Zayn’s hair and too-cool-for-school attitude but all it had taken was for Louis to shove him into the pool one afternoon for Harry to realise the gravity of the situation. 

Their friendships were still so fragile, still being formed and for a flash, Harry was sure it was all going to be over before it really started. Liam had fished him out, scolding glares across the back yard because Harry had laughed and alliances were already forming, Louis defensive.

There had been a lot of fuck-ups in the early days as they all started to get to know each other. Harry thought some times that he was just walking around with his foot permanently stuck in his mouth, all five of them trying to catch up on fifteen years of history in fifteen minutes, clamouring to know each other inside and out without realising that it took time and trust and patience.

It had gotten better when they started living with each other, all five of them in each other’s pockets until they didn’t know where one ended and the next began. Friendships and attachments woven between them all, a shared instinct to know when to push and when to pull. 

Harry was more anxious for it to work out than he sometimes likes to admit, closing himself up in the bathroom that day as Zayn went to dry off, panic beating up his chest that it was all over already.

But the next day, Zayn was in the pool, water up to his waist as he stood in the shallow end. All of them learning new ways to be around each other. All of them too eager to chase whatever the fuck they were getting themselves in for. 

“Hey, Zayn!” Harry calls, coming down the stairs. “Do you remember when we tried to --” 

“Is that --” Harry hears Zayn’s mum say, her voice tinny and shaky over FaceTime. Harry catches a glimpse of her widened eyes in shock before he ducks into the kitchen.

“Shit,” Harry swears, his heart beating wildly in his throat. 

“Zayn?” he hears her say carefully, her voice thousands of miles away. It’s a stark reminder that the world is going on beyond this little bubble Harry’s blew. That there’s a lot more people caught in the net of their mistakes than just Harry and Zayn. There’s the rest of the boys, their mums and sisters and everyone that knows them both together and apart. 

“It’s fine, mum,” Zayn says, reassuring her. “It’s nothing.”

Harry swallows the sting at that. _Nothing._ He takes a breath, blocks out the worried fussing of Zayn’s mum in the next room. He can’t listen to it anymore, the kindness, the worry. 

Maybe he’s been relying too much on their _old_ relationship, building hopes on foundations that aren’t as sound as he thought. 

This is something else entirely. 

Harry sets about doing the dishes just to do something with his hands. Distantly, he can hear Zayn ringing off, promising his mum to phone her back tomorrow and telling him he loves her. It sounds so _warm_ and genuine that it rings in Harry’s ears. 

“You alright?” Zayn asks from the doorway and Harry drops the plate into the soapy water. 

“Of course,” Harry says, pretending that there’s nothing strange in furiously scrubbing dishes in a pair of swimming shorts at 6 in the morning. 

“She says hello,” Zayn says, coming to stop beside him. He doesn’t help, just stands and watches the suds drip off pots and pans that could definitely fit in the dishwasher. 

Harry grunts a hello back, his fingers pruning in the water. 

“Don’t think she was expecting to see you,” Zayn says. Harry tries to work out his tone, wondering why he’s even bringing it up. 

“Oh,” Harry says, not mentioning that it’s his fucking house. 

From the corner of his eye, he can see Zayn smile. He’s staring out the window, not even looking at Harry. “You can really see into my house from here, huh?”

Harry drops the plate, a sudden burst of frustration fizzing up inside his belly. It feels a little like being caught, as if he built the houses himself for that reason alone. 

Zayn laughs, reaching to wipe the counter dry where Harry had splashed them both. “Will you chill out. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does, it --” Harry snaps but then stops himself. He can’t even work out the rest of the sentence. He doesn’t know what it means that Zayn’s mum knows they’re seeing each other again, just that it seems important, that whatever Harry’s doing to fuck up his life isn’t just contained to the two of them anymore. 

Her shocked tone reverberates in his ears for a moment and Harry’s eyes burn at the reminder that isn’t normal, that this is a _secret_.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Zayn asks, lifting a hand to rest on the back of Harry’s neck. He squeezes and Harry feels some of the tension drain out of his shoulders. “You look like you’re short-circuiting.”

“Just makes this feel a little more real,” Harry says, turning his head to look at Zayn in the face for the first time since he came into the kitchen. 

Zayn’s mouth is open, his bottom lip wet from his tongue. He cocks his head, his hand still a warm pressure at Harry’s neck. “This isn’t real?”

Harry closes his eyes, steps closer. Zayn’s still naked -- Harry doesn’t point out how rude that is to phone your mother not wearing any clothes, even he isn’t that bad (most of the time) -- and presses his wet hands to his hip. Zayn doesn’t complain, lets Harry curl into his neck. 

Zayn hugs him tighter and it seems easier not to answer. 

*

“I actually do have to paint this wall,” Harry says, waving a hand at the back wall of the living room.

Harry’s tucked between the back of the sofa and Zayn’s body, his head on his shoulder. Harry feels on the edge of sleep, Zayn’s hand scratching at the back of his nape. 

It’s been nice to lie like this, Harry listening to the steady thud of Zayn’s heart. 

They’ve been lying here for a while, dipping in and out of sleep. Harry wakes every time Zayn shifts, his heart hammering that he’s dreamt it all. They longer they lie, though, the more Harry feels anxious about it. The more he wants to get up and do something, to not be sitting ducks. 

“Why?” Zayn asks, his head turned to appraise the wall opposite them. It makes the line of his throat taut, all sharp contrast when he speaks. 

“It’s too boring,” Harry mutters, glancing away from the blank canvas of wall. It nearly feels oppressive, it’s that pale and nondescript. “I’m not happy with it.”

“Put something up then,” Zayn yawns, rolling over so he’s pressed shoulder to hip to Harry. 

It would be easy to roll into him too. Easy to just fall into sleep pressed this close but there’s something that keeps bringing him back from the brink. Maybe, they can just push through. 

“No,” Harry murmurs, rallying. “C’mon, I’ve two brushes.”

Zayn huffs a laugh into Harry’s chest before he presses his mouth there. Harry hesitates, not sure of where it’s going but then Zayn’s crawling up over him, looking like he’s ready to laugh at any moment. 

“Perfect,” Harry says, rolling out from under him before he gets dragged into another kiss. “We’ll have it done in no time.”

Harry marks out the corners, Zayn watching lazily from the sofa but when it comes to it, he does help. It’s nice having him there, a quiet sounding board for Harry as he rambles through the story about getting an interior decorator but still not being happy with it. About how he’s picked these colours himself but still isn’t sure about them. 

“What colour are you going for?” he asks, surveying the choices that Harry’s got stacked in a circle by their feet. Harry’s pried them all open with a screwdriver and they all look different, none of them really what Harry’s feeling. 

He stays quiet, not wanting to admit to the disappointment that he’s still not going to happy with this wall. Zayn squints up at him with an expression that tells Harry he knows exactly what he’s thinking. 

“I think you should go for this one,” Zayn says, dipping his brush in the gaudy pink one. It’s so bright that it nearly hurts Harry’s eyes to look at it. 

Harry laughs. “That is definitely an ordering mistake. It looks like my sister’s bedroom when we were younger.”

Zayn hums and slaps it up onto the wall. Harry cringes at the sight of it. 

Zayn makes a show of stepping back, framing it with his fingers and thumbs as if he’s an expert. He looks ridiculous, standing in the pair of tight swimming shorts Harry had given him and nothing else. “It’ll dry more matte.”

“Come on,” Harry laughs, reaching for something more sedate. 

Zayn tuts and shakes his head. “I thought you wanted something _less_ boring.”

“This _is_,” Harry insists, sticking a clean brush into it and slapping it up beside the glare of the pink. It looks washed out in comparison, an oatmeal-y colour faded compared to the contrast of the hot pink. 

Zayn snorts and reaches for another paint brush. Harry’s going to hate himself tomorrow when he has to clean them all. 

“It’s safe,” Zayn tells him, resolutely and kicks the tin with his toe until it’s pushed into the corner with the pink. “But if you’re not feeling more adventurous, I think you should go for this one.”

Zayn swings the pot into the space between them and Harry jerks, fearing that he’s going to spill it all over the floor. It’s a thick purple, the gloss of it making it look rich and deep. 

“Is it too dark?” Harry worries and Zayn huffs a laugh, already stirring it with the end of the paintbrush. He’s going to get paint all over his hands but Zayn doesn’t seem to mind. 

“You want something more exciting, don’t you?” Zayn asks, glancing up at him. “Want something different from what you had before? New? A fresh start?”

Harry’s head swims. Are they even still talking about paint? 

Zayn’s staring at him, the muscle in his back flexing the longer he stays bent over. There’s a red mark on his shoulder that Harry knows he put there, it’s purpling the longer the day goes on. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, his stomach twisting. It’s only paint but Zayn’s face evens out into a contented smile, like he’s won something even though Harry’s not sure what. 

The paint goes on easily, big broad strokes of aubergine that glide over the pink and stone. It looks richer once it’s on the wall, the warmth of it taking up the whole room. Maybe it’s oppressive in a different way, Harry’s living room becoming crowded and claustrophobic. 

Zayn ignores any of Harry’s hesitation and starts painting anyway. 

Harry’s not sure if it’s the delirium of being half asleep or the fumes of the paint but he finds the filter between his brain and his mouth momentarily broken. He dips down for more paint, glances over at Zayn just a step away from him.

“You’re releasing the album,” Harry says. 

It’s not a question or an accusation. Just a fact. It hangs between them for a moment and Harry drips paint on his toes, his breath caught in his chest. 

Zayn hums, his concentration on rolling the paint onto the wall in steady strokes. 

It’s just like how it usually is between them, the way they’d be able to finish each other’s sentences sometimes, the pass of a water bottle on stage, how they’d be perfectly in sync without ever having to be vocal about it. 

“That’s the plan,” Zayn says, bluntly. And then, “I know _you’ve_ thought about it.”

It doesn’t really shock Harry. It’s the truth. In whispered conversations many moons ago, Harry’s probably told him about it. He’s not going to deny thinking of a future beyond the band, of all the things he feels in the rhythm of his bones that don’t quite line up with what they’re workshopping for the band, that thread of thought that goes on beyond.

“Yeah,” Harry answers quietly. It sounds muted, the brush of paint sounding louder than it should. “I have. But --”

“It feels good,” Zayn says, snorting softly to himself. He adopts a smile onto his face. “Can’t fucking wait.”

Quiet. Proud. 

Harry’s mouth feels stale. Zayn seems so relaxed about it. It’s hard to reconcile it with the Zayn he remembers the last few weeks on tour, the tightness of his shoulders, the clipped ends to his sentences. 

Here he is, nearly floating with it. 

It jars with how Harry feels, how mixed up his head is. A jumble of emotions and thoughts and past conversations. Just a touch too fresh and too raw to really touch to figure everything out yet. Harry supposes that Zayn’s a longer time to think it over, though. He wasn’t walked out on. He did the walking. 

“The band,” Harry starts carefully. Zayn doesn’t make any move to show that he’s listening, just a slow up and down of his elbow as he works. “The band felt good, too.” Harry rushes to correct himself. “Feels good.”

Zayn doesn’t respond immediately and Harry wonders if he’s choosing his words carefully. Harry wishes suddenly they were having this conversation tomorrow, after they had slept and Harry could organise his thoughts properly. 

“It’s just the right thing to do. The right next step,” Zayn says with a shrug. “It isn’t everything, you know? The band doesn’t define me. I shouldn’t have to explain it.”

In a burst, Harry feels immature and naive. There’s something about Zayn’s tone, the set of his shoulders, the scowl that’s creeping onto his face. It’s as if Harry should just _know_. As if Harry is on the same page as Zayn about this. That expectation for him to go running off and gathering up a recording contract at the snap of his fingers when his bed is hardly cold. 

He knows he could do it. Could’ve done it. Zayn nearly gave him an even bigger out, the band floundering in his wake but it was momentary, just a split second of stray thought as they tried to process it in humid Hong Kong. Harry had forgotten about it as quickly as he contemplated it. He was never going to do that and he doesn’t think he should feel ashamed for staying put. 

There’s always been an element of Harry being the youngest -- the baby. Niall gets it too and sometimes Harry likes it -- the pair of them being able to laugh at stupid shit together. 

But Harry’s never felt it so much now. He’s never felt like it was being used _against_ him. 

Of course, Harry’s thought about the limitations of the band but he’s never seen it as a limit on himself. He could never imagine it getting to that point, where he felt he had no other choice but to walk away. Harry’s throat burns, torn between the residual anger at Zayn’s situation and pitying him for it. 

“Come on,” Zayn whispers, his hands pressing paint into Harry’s skin. It’s an age old tactic but Harry’s easy for it, lets himself be distracted by a kiss for a few moments until he has the headspace to kiss back. “Forget about it.”

“Can we go to bed?” Harry sighs, words running together. His head feels heavy, finally giving into how tired he is. It’s the middle of the day but they’ve been awake for hours. “Come to bed.” 

Zayn’s staring at him when he opens his eyes, his mouth and face pink from the sun. He nods, his jaw open slightly. Harry rubs his fingers over his chin and down his neck, feeling out the strong tendons, his Adam’s apple, the dip of his collarbone. There’s a brush of purple paint on his cheekbone and Harry kisses against it, feeling the metallic taste against his tongue. 

“Anywhere,” Zayn mutters and Harry’s chest feels tight. Anywhere but where Harry needs him most. 

*

It’s dark when Harry wakes up face down across the bed. He shivers, the duvet on the floor and the open window letting in a breeze. Harry can see the glow from the city below them reflect up into the sky when he turns his head.

Half-asleep, Harry’s confused and disorientated. He rolls over, his hand searching across his bed for a body but comes up short, fingers closing around a piece of paper instead _couldn’t sleep, come on over_. For a moment Harry thinks of Niall in London but then he remembers that it’s Zayn. 

Harry knows it’s code for _going to smoke_ and there’s a part of Harry that thinks he might join him, might let it take the edge off. He’s royally fucked up his sleep schedule as it is, his head feeling full of cotton wool as he pulls himself out of bed and pads through the house. 

The wall in his living room is still drying out, the aubergine coming up more purple in the low lamp light. It looks overbearing, the whole focus of the room on the wall. It probably needs another coat too, their uneven brush strokes meeting in patches in the middle. The floor is a state, their paint brushes lying where they had dropped them before they had stumbled off to bed. 

Harry can’t look at it, can’t think about tidying it up right now. He makes his way down the drive, hardly having to wait for Zayn to buzz him in. He feels a bit silly, like Zayn can read him well enough that he knew he would follow. He wonders for a moment if he’s giving too much of himself away, if he should’ve stayed in his house until Zayn was the one to come back. 

“What the fuck?” Harry asks when Zayn answers the door, his eyes catching on his freshly shorn head. 

Zayn gives his head a once over with his palm, looks a bit sheepish. 

“Have I been asleep for days?” Harry asks, staring at his cropped hair cut. 

Zayn shrugs, letting Harry back into the house. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, go read a book,” Harry murmurs, eyes straying up to his shaved head. “Don’t get scalped.”

Zayn snorts, his eyes soft and fucked looking. He reaches across and pulls on some of Harry’s hair. “You’ve enough for both of us. Just fancied a change.”

Harry frowns and follows him into the house. When he was here before, Harry hadn’t got the full tour so it brings him up short when Zayn leads the way into a home studio fitted into a room at the back of the house. 

“Oh,” Harry murmurs, stopped in the doorway. 

The sight of his makeshift studio makes everything feel a touch too real. Harry hasn’t even stepped foot into a studio this year. It’s tough to swallow that Zayn’s left and is already recording his very own music. Julian’s untitled demos in his car stereo feel so elementary compared to this.

The whole room has been professionally panelled, the walls painted a muted red. It looks slick, the sound board and computer pushed up against one side of the room and a make-shift microphone booth in the other. It stinks of smoke, the curtains pulled to make the acoustics better but it just adds to the cosy feel, the air hot and fragrant and claustrophobic. There’s probably space to fit in a drum kit and a few people on guitars at a squeeze but Harry doesn’t think that Zayn’s had a band in yet. There’s a sofa pushed up against the other wall, a blanket strewn over the end revealing where Zayn must be spending most of his nights. 

“Handy,” Harry manages over the knot in his throat. The last thing he needs is for Zayn to think he’s jealous. He’s _not_. He tells himself that anyway. “I’m sure you get loads of work done.”

Zayn gives him a measured look and Harry knows he’s being too formal, too polite. In another life, Harry would’ve just thrown himself down on the fancy looking studio chair in front of the equipment and made himself right at home. Played about with the knobs of the equalizer, exited out of the software and messed with photobooth instead.

Now, he stands in the doorway waiting for Zayn to invite him in. He watches as Zayn sits down in the leather chair, reclines a bit and spins it so he’s looking at Harry. 

He looks comfortable there, Zayn pulling on a pair of Beats, oversized and silver around his neck and reclining in his chair, legs spread. 

“You want to hear?” Zayn asks, his hand pulling at the headphones. Harry can hear faintly that there’s music playing through them, too low to properly make out. 

Harry’s mouth feels dry and he has a flash of regret that he’s come back, wishes at least that he had waited until he was more awake, more with it. Maybe he would be able to handle this situation better.

Harry does want to hear it and he very much doesn’t. He can’t lie, ever since the journo mentioned it to him at the gallery opening, Harry’s been _so_ curious to hear Zayn’s record, to hear how finished it is, to hear if it’s _good_ or not. To hear if it was worth it.

“No,” Harry mutters, shaking his head. 

Zayn snorts, his smirk growing. It’s all a bit of a game, both of them back to circling around not talking about the band and the record. Harry knows it’s to hide the fact that neither of them know what the fuck they’re doing. 

“Okay,” he says and swivels in the chair, rolling back to the desk. Harry knows that he turns up the volume, the sound coming even more rhythmic through the headphones. Zayn hums, his toes beating against the wheel of the chair, his head ducked down to look at his phone. 

Harry rolls a few questions around on his tongue -- who are you texting, what are you up to now, who are you writing for?

“When do you go back?” Harry finds himself asking instead, already knowing that he doesn’t care about the answer. If they can maybe segue away from the new record. 

Zayn frowns for a moment, ghoulish in the light of his phone. “At the end of the week. Just for a few days. I’ve got a thing,” he says vaguely. 

Harry nods. They’ve all got _things_ now. Things that spread them out across the world and on their own paths. Harry needs to plan his own things or he’ll be left behind at this rate.

There’s an itch under Harry’s skin, has been since he first work up, he supposes. He touches the back of Zayn’s skull first, feeling the prickle of Zayn’s new haircut. It’s just freshly done and Harry wonders if he did it himself, some sort of cleansing ritual as soon as he left Harry’s house or if he had help, his friends laughing and goading him into it. 

Zayn lets go of a laugh and then quickly sucks in a breath, his shoulders jerking as he shivers. His skull is hot, Harry can feel out the bones of it, the delicate shape as it curves down to his nape. He rakes his fingers over it, feeling the prickle of stubble against his nails.

“Do you like it?” Zayn whispers, his voice all caught and low. 

Harry hums, steps between his knees so he can put his other palm against the other side. He presses his palms against his temples, brushes them back to feel the heat against his skin. Zayn blinks up at him, his eyes fluttering shut. 

Zayn has a hand on Harry’s hip and it seems easy to just lower himself into his lap, his knees at either side of Zayn’s hips. Zayn leans back, spreads his knees so there’s less of a chance of Harry falling off. 

“Sometimes,” Zayn comments as Harry gets comfy across his thighs. Harry likes the stretch in his groin, the feel of it down to his knees. Zayn trails his fingers over Harry’s bare hip where his shorts have slipped and it makes him shift, rocking his pelvis closer to Zayn’s free hand. “You’re obscene.”

“That’s the way you love me,” Harry lets slip without thinking and time seems to stop. Harry takes a breath, loud over the tinny buzz of music still emitting from the headphones. Zayn doesn’t say anything, his hand paused where it’s pressed over the fluttering muscles of Harry’s belly. 

Harry hates that he feels like he should take it back. It used to be the truth -- they’ve always been on the same wavelength without having to overthink or second guess saying it to each other. But it’s been playing on his mind since dinner, how maybe the scales aren’t balanced anymore. How the three of them are bobbing about on different weights. 

Zayn’s trying very hard to keep his face blank, his eyes boring a hole into Harry’s shoulder. Harry can feel how tense they are, his thighs straining across Zayn’s.

“Let’s hear, then,” Harry finds himself saying, voice rough. He doesn’t sound convincing -- Harry doesn’t want to hear. It’s a morbid fascination that makes him say it. He needs to know what Zayn left him for. What was so important. 

Zayn reaches back, opening up his chest. Harry thinks of prepping for gomukhasana, of that slow reach back with your arm. Inhaling and feeling your chest expand and open. Head over heart. His expression stills as he pulls the headphones out of the jack. 

It takes a moment, a split second where Harry’s only able to gather up a choked breath before the room ignites with sound. 

There’s a thready guitar bass line, something that Niall would love before the drums kick in. It’s loud and fills his bones, fills that cavity inside his chest where Zayn and Niall rattle about unbidden until Harry finds it hard to breathe. 

Zayn’s expression is careful -- guarded and protective. This means something to him. Means more than their music ever did. He’s _proud_, Harry decides. Something close to the surface that Harry can feel, as if that contentment was radiating from Zayn to Harry through each point where they’re touching. 

Zayn slowly meets his eye, a shine and glimmer to it that makes Harry’s mouth dry. He kisses him, tries to push everything he’s feeling all tight inside his throat into Zayn’s mouth. It makes them breathless, Harry pulling away before Zayn can even properly respond.

Zayn’s staring at him, his mouth open, hands gripping at Harry’s sides. Harry feels wobbly. A bit like everything is just a touch out of reach, like it’s someone else that’s moving his body, making his heart pound. 

He slides back, Zayn’s knees narrowing until he’s on his feet again and able to drop down onto his knees between them.

“Harry--” Zayn says, voice rough and slightly stunned. A hand goes to Harry’s face, fingers skimming over his jaw before it flutters away, gripping at the arm of the chair instead. 

He and Zayn have always been physical people -- physical together and apart. It evened the playing ground between them, allowed them the space to open up for each other once all the building tension between them had been sweated out. 

It feels like the only way for Harry to get close to him now. To _show_ what he means because he can’t _say_ it. To show how under all his bitterness and anger, Harry’s reluctantly impressed and blindingly jealous and he’s really fucking confused. 

It’s a way to prove that he still wants him. That Zayn still has a space _with_ him. That they’d take him back in a heartbeat. That Harry still _wants_ him.

He thought this was over. That he’d never get another chance. 

He wants to savour it now. Wants to catalogue every single bit of Zayn’s body that he might’ve missed before. The bits of him that have dulled in his memory, those bits that he never remembers. The bits of Zayn that make up who he is. 

The past day or two, Harry’s been taking, taking, taking, but he hasn’t heard him. Hasn’t listened to what Zayn has to say. He’s put the music and the writing and the band to the side because it’s still surreal to think of them separate and apart now. 

Harry presses his mouth to Zayn’s knee, feels the heat of his skin on his tongue. Zayn’s breathing loud now, just loud enough that Harry can hear him over the thud of Zayn’s music on the soundsystem. 

It sounds so polished -- the drums real and rhythmic. They creep and build and find a home inside Harry’s head. Until he’s unable to ignore it, can’t pretend it isn’t happening. It’s real. Like Zayn’s real beneath his palms and lips. He can’t believe he’s got all this down so _soon_, wonders how long he’s been working on this on his own, before he left, as a secret. 

“Zayn,” he says, hears how wrecked he sounds. He doesn’t dare glance up. He doesn’t need to see his desperation reflected in Zayn’s face. Or worse -- if it’s not. 

He slides the pads of his fingers up, pressing against the hair on Zayn’s thighs. It’s thick and black but soft. His boxers are tight, soft cotton that Harry slips his fingers underneath. Zayn’s skin here feels so much warmer, hotter the closer Harry creeps to where he wants. 

“Harry,” Zayn repeats back to him. Harry has to look up there, once he hears the click of his breath, how he’s cut himself off from saying more. Zayn looks just like he always has. Like he _was_. Not in those final weeks and months. 

But right back at the start. 

His kiss is searing, Harry leaning up, his back stretched. He can feel the pressure in his knees as he makes himself as tall as he can to reach Zayn’s mouth. Zayn grips at his jaw, his fingertips hot points at his cheek, his neck and behind his ear. It feels like he’s pulling him up, pulling him closer. 

Harry gasps, desperate for breath as Zayn clutches him closer. The music is still playing, loud and repeating, it’s nearly hypnotic. Zayn’s eyes look so clear when he pulls back. Like there’s a new clarity there.

Harry slumps, his bum hitting his heels as he catches his breath. He’s still wearing his trainers and the rubber digs into his arse as he shifts. Zayn lifts his hips, pushes his underwear down so Harry can drag it the rest of the way. Zayn splays his legs once they’re over his ankles, draws Harry back between his knees. 

Now, Harry doesn’t want to look away from him. He likes that feeling of being caught up completely in Zayn’s raw gaze. He has the urge to tell him he loves him again. That he misses him. That he’s been thinking of him.

But he doesn’t say anything, just feeds the head of Zayn’s dick into his mouth. This hasn’t changed, the familiar weight against his tongue, the smell of Zayn pressed up against his nose. 

“Fucking hell, Harry,” Zayn hums familiarly, relaxing back into the chair. 

Harry’s feels the opposite, feels desperate for it, taking him right to the back of his mouth. His lips feel taut, his mouth full. There’s something sharp edging the desperation, that heat from being slightly embarrassed about how eager he is for the stretch in his mouth, for hands on his skin. 

Zayn groans in appreciation, his hand fluttering near Harry’s ear for a moment before he sinks his fingers into his hair. Harry moans in response, he knows Zayn gets off on how much Harry loves sucking him off and he shouldn’t be worried about the sounds he makes, about who will hear.

Zayn slides down in the chair, hissing when his thighs stick to the leather. It gives him a better angle to rock into Harry’s mouth and Harry slackens his jaw, lets him fuck up into the heat of it for a moment. Zayn’s muscles jump under Harry’s wandering hands. He presses the heel of his hand to Zayn’s left hip, pushes him back into the leather and swallows him down. He feels in control like this, even as he drools out of the corner of his mouth and his jaw is beginning to ache. He likes knowing that he’s making Zayn fall apart with just his tongue. He uses his other hand to push up over his belly, under the soft wool of his jumper. It slips over his knuckles, feels the opposite of the stubbled skin below Zayn’s navel where he must’ve shaved and let it regrow back. Harry rubs his thumb over it, feels the way Zayn arches up into his mouth. 

“Harry,” Zayn warns, voice rougher. More like how Harry likes it. Harry hums around his cock, sucks him deeper. He presses his knuckles into the heart on Zayn’s hip, rubs his other down below his balls and feels it a moment too late as Zayn starts to come. 

Harry breathes through it, feels the kick of his dick in his mouth and swallows. 

“Harry, fuck, c’mere,” Zayn says but his voice sounds far away. The song on the speaker system changes, rotates to something more underground and bassy. It loops and swirls, Harry getting lost in the music as the roar of his blood fades in his ears, his eyes glassy. 

And then --

Zayn’s voice. 

Layered over the beat as it twists. _I’ve done this before. Not like this. Not like this._ He sounds melodic and clear and Harry’s stumbling away from him on autopilot. 

“Harry,” Zayn calls after him, his voice wrecked. “Wait.”

Zayn’s vocals. Zayn’s vocals on his own songs. Zayn’s songs that he’s made without him.

He can’t get the sound of Zayn’s voice -- his singing voice -- out of his head. The way it had sounded artfully rough, that warm deepness to it. That tone. 

Whenever they recorded something new for the band, Harry used to take Zayn out in the car. They’d drive -- Zayn picking left or right at each junction until they were well and truly lost -- and just listen to the new songs, marvelling that that was _their_ voices coming out over the speaker, that they’d made something that other people would get to hear, would get to love. 

Harry’s eyes burn as he tries to think of the last time they did anything like that. What song they played on repeat as they wound round the English countryside or got lost in the labyrinth of LA? 

They had recorded most of the last album on the bus, passing each other like ships in the night as they called into hotel rooms and hid behind mattresses pressed up against walls. He remembers warming up in echoing bathrooms with awful acoustics and lying on the floor listening to Niall behind a makeshift booth, falling asleep on notebooks and stray pieces of crumpled paper. He tries to think of Zayn recording, his thin face pale at 4am, his eyes black at breakfast. 

They didn’t listen to any of the new songs like they used to. Something in their make up had changed forever and Harry can’t even grapple with it to figure out when. 

“Harry!” Zayn’s calling behind him, his voice sounding far away. The record is still playing, bass reverberating up the hallway behind Harry as he stumbles into the kitchen. 

He spits into the sink, feels the cool press of the steel draining board against his hot forehead. He feels shivery, his heart racing still but blood flooding back into his toes and fingers so hard it makes him sway. 

He can still feel the beat of Zayn’s music vibrating against his ribcage. Can hear his voice, soft and mellow and sharp and winding on those high notes ringing in his ears. 

“Here,” Zayn says, his voice making Harry jump. Zayn gives him a worried look before reaching past him, filling a glass of water for Harry. Harry hadn’t heard him come in behind him, hadn’t heard him follow.

“Thanks,” Harry says, thickly, embarrassment making him numb. 

Zayn doesn’t say anything, just leans back against the kitchen counter. He looks wrecked, his skin still pink and splotchy. Harry could run, could just head back to his house and forget this all happened. 

“You don’t like it then?” Zayn says, trying for a joke but it comes out awkwardly, both of them staring at each other in the dim of the kitchen. 

Harry wants to cry, a blunt, hot balloon expanding in his chest until he’s near suffocated by it. He takes a sip of the water, tries not to cough. 

“Just a bit of a shock,” Harry murmurs. He doesn’t really know what else to say. Harry swallows roughly, gulps down the water in the glass that feels nearly too heavy in his hands. “Come on,” Harry says. “I want to hear the end.”

Zayn raises his eyebrows.

Professionally, Harry doesn’t owe him anything. He knows that deep down in his bones. But as friends, as partners, as whatever-the-fuck they were, Harry might owe him at least an opinion, a listen through without making it all about him. 

Zayn leads the way back to the studio and Harry hears the music is still playing but this time back through the headphones, the reverb of it tinny because it’s so loud. 

Zayn lets him sit in the spinny chair this time. Harry watches as he fiddles with the screen, his skin hot where he’s pressed close. He smells of sweat and of come and Harry flushes again, gulps at the water where he can still taste him at the back of his mouth. 

“Here,” Zayn mutters, clicking onto another track. He steps back, pulls a stool up close to where Harry’s sitting so he can be close but not sitting on top of him. “This is my favourite at the minute.”

Harry listens as the track clicks over, the white noise in the headphones giving way to music threading up again, like from underwater. There’s still production to go on it, Harry can tell where it’s missing spots but it just highlights how new this is, how fresh. 

It feels current, as if Zayn had just laid it down, just thought it and it was made.

Harry closes his eyes against Zayn’s bright expression. There’s something vulnerable in letting people listen to something for the first time, all the more if it’s something that means something to you. Harry can remember what it was like when you brought something to the table for the band, how it would be picked apart, parts of it teased out until it was made into something new, maybe better. Part of Harry thrived on it, the criticism making him work harder. 

Zayn’s worried, unease glancing across his expression as he settles back on the stool, his elbows on his knees, but there’s excitement there too, pride in having made something all of his own. Harry tries to keep his face blank, tries to smooth out where he looks so upset. 

Because Harry loves him for it. Loves him for his ambition and his talent. Loves him for how much _he’s_ obviously enjoying it and how much he _needs_ it. 

But Harry can’t help that it’s a bit misplaced. Harry _wants_ too. He needs it for himself. He needs it for Niall. 

He wants to make the music he wants to make again. He wants to have something to be just as proud as Zayn is of this. He wants to give Niall that opportunity too. And Liam. And Louis. 

When he opens his eyes, Zayn’s smiling and Harry finds that he’s smiling, too. Smiling back, something settling in him as the song draws to a close. Plans made. 

Zayn reaches for him and they tangle their fingers, Harry settling back as the track clicks onto the next song. 

*

Louis lets him into the house wearing a pair of football shorts and a dirty looking zip up hoodie, the zip undone so Harry can see a flash of his tattoos. There’s a cigarette behind his ear and as they edge through the house, Harry catches a glimpse of a girl in the TV room, long brown hair thrown over one shoulder. 

That explains the soft, fucked out look on his face then. 

She doesn’t look over her shoulder and Harry doesn’t call to her. For a jarring moment, Harry thinks it’s Eleanor but then has to remind himself that it’s not. It never will be again. 

The house looks bare, hardly any furniture yet and the walls an off white that barely covers the plasterwork. It’s a new build and Harry hadn’t even known that Louis was planning on buying in LA until it was already bought. 

“Missed you at the charity event,” Louis says once they’ve settled at the table outside. He doesn’t sound angry, just flat. Harry infers the disappointment in it. 

“I’ll donate,” Harry offers weakly. Louis doesn’t react and Harry nods guiltily. He knows it’s got nothing to do with the money at this point and his presence would have meant more. At least for Louis, Liam and Niall anyway. 

They sit for a moment. In complete silence. Harry suddenly doesn’t want to be there, even though he was the one who set up the meeting. This stilted air between the two of them isn’t new -- it’s been growing bigger and bigger the past year. Harry doesn’t like it, doesn’t like how the weight of a simple conversation seems to be so heavy on their shoulders when they’re alone together. Louis looks like it’s lying right on top of him now, the way he’s rounded against it with his face a blank impasse. 

“Niall said he’d been to see you,” Louis says. Harry thinks he was aiming for a light tone -- something blasé and inconsequential but it comes out a little accusing. Harry stares over his shoulder. There’s a flowering flannel bush behind him, hanging with boughs of gold. Harry stares at it until the oranges and yellow blur together. 

It’s not that it was ever a secret. Very little stays a secret between the five of them. 

If someone is feeling down or sick or upset, it’s normally pretty obvious. They used to close ranks, make it their priority to cheer that person up until they could smile again, until everyone’s mood was buoyed up. 

It was more a case of making sure that that one person was ready to face everyone else, rather than opening up again to let everyone else in. 

In just the same way, if someone was feeling good or happy or excited, it was contagious and the rest were soon feeling the same way. 

Harry’s not quite sure when that changed. When they couldn’t bring that sad person into the middle again. When they were no longer able to take a share in the communal happiness and not feel sick about it.

Louis is staring at him, his eyes narrowing but not unkindly. Harry shakes his head, ducks it to look at the rips in his knees. There’s a gouge over his knee that’s fraying -- more than artfully -- and he picks at the threads, one curling into his skin to make it itch. 

They never made an announcement. They never really had to. Sometimes it was like working in a hive mind -- it was obvious to whoever was in the know.

Right? 

“I’m not sure what’s going on anymore,” Harry says, honestly. Something tightens in his chest, cinching round a cog so words don’t come easy. 

Louis doesn’t say anything, just waits for Harry to come out with it. That’s what Harry loved about him, right back at the start when Harry felt like there was so much going on in his head -- in his life -- that it would all come out in meandering sentences and stories that went nowhere, all mixed up and muddled. 

It would be so frustrating, to have something to say but not really know how to say it. Or if he should.

Louis would listen until he got to the point, even if it was three days later. 

And then suddenly, Louis could hardly wait long enough for Harry to string a sentence together. 

Louis clears his throat quietly and Harry glances up again. He can feel himself frowning and he knows that Louis is watching him carefully. 

Louis and Liam knew about them. That’s the point he’s trying to make. He doesn’t have to explain how Niall and Harry are working through a few extra tangles after the first half of the tour. After Zayn leaving.

That he didn’t just leave the band.

“I’m sure it was nice to see him,” Louis prompts. 

Harry nods out of habit. It _was_ nice to see him. 

He can nearly hear how Louis rolls his eyes. The chair creaks as Louis gets to his feet. He stretches, pulling his arms up over his head. “Right --” he says decisively. 

“How was he?” Harry asks in a rush. If Louis goes inside now, the moment will be lost. 

Louis turns slowly, his arms lowering. He looked confused for a moment. “Niall?”

Harry nods, holding his gaze. He still hasn’t heard from him, even if it has only been a week. The first few days were fine -- Harry was distracted enough. Days and hours had run together and then Zayn left for England. Harry had returned to his house as if he’d been away for months, the houses stinking of paint and Harry abuzz of new determination.

The thought makes Harry queasy again and he glances away from Louis, in case he reads his expression again and takes it the wrong way. 

Louis breaks into a confused smile. “He was fine.” Then he turns sharp. “Why, what’s wrong with him?”

Harry shakes his head. He’s glad Niall’s still talking to Louis, at least. 

“He’s dealing,” Louis says. He doesn’t sit down and it’s off-putting that Harry’s looking up at him. That Louis’s looking down. The sun slices over his shoulder, the bush aglow in the corner of Harry’s eye. “We’re all dealing with it. Aren’t we?”

“Some better than others,” Harry says before he can stop himself. He’s not even sure what he means. Are any of them better at dealing with it?

Louis straightens, his shoulders rising even though they both know Harry didn’t mean it offensively. “No,” he disagrees. “Just each in our own way.”

Harry nods. Tries to tell himself that that’s enough. Louis is still standing though, knows from years of experience that Harry’s got more to say. 

“He hasn’t talked about it,” Harry lets go, the hurt in it unfurling out of his chest. He didn’t talk to Zayn about this -- how could he? But he hasn’t had the opportunity to talk to anyone else the past few days. He can’t look at Louis for his reaction so he stares at the brand new grout between the slabs of the patio. It’s already growing grey and weathered looking. “Hasn’t even mentioned it. It’s just completely --” Harry shrugs. “Locked up.”

Louis doesn’t say anything for a moment and then Harry feels a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s doing good,” Louis says, his tone going gentle. Harry nods, ducks his head again. Louis squeezes his shoulder reassuringly, his hand sliding to the nape of his neck right where Harry’s bent over. “But it’s probably going to be a little bit different between you two --” Louis takes a breath --”three.”

Harry glances up, not expecting Louis to be so forthright. Louis gives him a tight smile as if he’s just as surprised. 

If the four of them haven’t really properly talked about Zayn leaving, they sure as hell haven’t discussed the nuances of Zayn leaving Harry and Niall too. The closest was Liam, sort of drunkenly broaching the subject late one night as Harry walked him back to his hotel room. He had leaned heavily on Harry’s shoulder and asked him how Zayn was doing. 

When Harry had told him he hadn’t spoken to him, Liam had looked very sad and put himself to bed leaving Harry adrift in the empty corridor. 

“Are you alright?” Louis asks, the narrowing of his eyes sign of his concern rather than cynicism. 

Harry fights the urge to just brush him off and pretend. When he glances up and catches the way Louis actually looks _worried_ he manages a, “Yes,” but it comes out tight. 

“What _have_ you been doing since Niall went back to England?” Louis asks, his hand still a weight on his shoulder. It feels like some sort of odd role reversal. If Louis even deigns to give advice, it’s usually from where he’s sprawled across the tour bus floor and emerging from a faint cloud of smoke. It’s been a while since Harry’s been there to witness it. 

Harry shrugs, his shoulder jerking Louis’s hand away. It feels defensive but Harry half means it that way, a sudden roll of embarrassment at not really doing anything productive lately. 

Louis rolls his eyes and the moment is broken, his advice turns to something Harry’s more familiar with. “Get out of the house and stop moping. You live in LA, you whinge on and on about it enough. Go farm some organic beans or something. Marinate in the sun with an overpriced bottle of water sieved through dirt. Feel good about your life.”

Harry snorts, finding himself smiling. Louis grins at him, something a little bit triumphant in his eyes when Harry next meets them. The fact that Louis is trying to make him feel better is more than a little foreign. 

“You’ll settle into the LA lifestyle soon enough,” Harry promises and the discussion is over. They know each other well enough to know that it would be no good to push it any further. 

Louis sighs, stretches again and looks out into his garden. Neither of them say anything for a moment, the silence drawing out between them until it’s verging on awkward again. 

Harry turns back to picking at the rips in his jeans.

“I think I’m going to pull out my study and turn it into a studio,” Harry says, just to break the silence. 

Louis looks over his shoulders, his eyebrows raised in a mild approximation of an impressed expression but Harry can see the skepticism in it. Harry feels himself flush a little with nerves and he shrugs, just to do something under Louis’s gaze. 

“You’re never finished changing that house, are you?” Louis asks. 

Harry shrugs again. Nothing ever feels right. Like it’s perfectly his _home_. “It might help me.” Louis’s face is blank so Harry rushes to fill in the gaps. “Help me write. Focus, you know?”

“Write?” Louis asks, an edge to his voice buried beneath the curiosity. 

Harry looks up at him, the golden leaves behind him shining in the sun. “Don’t pretend you’re not writing too. I want this to be the best record yet.” 

Louis smiles at the honesty in his voice and Harry finds himself smiling back. He catches a hint of relief in Louis’s expression and the idea that even Louis thought Harry wouldn’t be invested in a new record stings a bit. He knows it’s what everyone thinks. 

“I want this, Louis,” Harry says, gets it all off his chest. “I want this for all of us to be the best record we ever make. And I think we can do it. Let’s just put all this shit behind us and work really hard on this together.”

It feels a little bit more achievable now that he’s said it out loud, a little more real. A bit like turning a corner. A confession. 

Louis glances out at his garden again and then over to Harry, his hands in his pockets and a quiet determined smirk settling on his face. “Fancy a beer?”

| jitney | 

Niall finds him by the backdoor, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He had told Harry not to bother collecting him at the airport, the first message he had sent him since he had disappeared to London over a week ago.

In the meantime, Harry had tried turning his hand to writing, including a conciliatory session with Louis who had kicked him out of his house after their first attempt had whittled itself down to bickering and sniping at each other. 

“I’ll just wait for Liam to get here,” Louis had said, his eyes red rimmed and bloodshot. His houseguest was in the kitchen making a mess. Harry had rolled his eyes, left him there in his doorway in his pants. 

Home wasn’t any more inspiring -- his empty bed and its empty rooms. He had taken to sitting in the garden, staring at the hot red tiled roof on Zayn’s empty house but that had only made him feel worse. 

Pulling the living room apart again had felt much more productive. He ripped down the stud wall by hand, working up a sweat to take his mind off things and there’s a new coat of paint -- something completely different, a sage green that was supposed to mellow out the room and make it feel less oppressive. On advice from his designer everything was swapped out to worn chunky woods and cast iron fittings until everything but a few framed plaques stacked against the corner was brand new. 

It still feels cavernously empty. 

Harry hates it.

“Did you seriously forget what the weather was like?” Harry asks Niall, giving him the once over in his thick flannel shirt. It’s blue and sets off his eyes something shocking. His forehead is a little shiny. 

“Thought I’d dress for the occasion,” Niall retorts, his head turning to look at the growing pile of furniture and plywood accumulating in the space Harry cleared beside the pool a few days ago. He hasn’t convinced himself not to put up the wall again. “Louis said you were writing not renovating.”

Harry hears his disapproving tone and can’t help how he’s a bit terse with him. He climbs up out of the deck chair and heads inside, the sides of his open shirt flapping around his bare torso. “You’d know exactly what I was doing if you replied to any of my messages.”

Niall raises an eyebrow at his clipped tone. “Should I get a hotel?”

Harry feels shame flood his chest and shakes his head. “Sorry.”

Niall doesn’t say anything. Just hitches his bag across his shoulder as if to remind him that he’s still got all of his luggage on him. He’s got more this time and to Harry, it’s a reassurance that he’s staying properly. Something unpicks inside and he already feels less frantic. 

“Our bedroom’s still the same,” Harry says, moving past the silence. “No renovation there.”

Niall’s mouth turns up at the corner and Harry feels his shoulders unravel.

The back of Niall’s neck has faded from sunburnt red to a warm tan. He’s got a haircut while he was in London, the back of his head neat and tidy. They get to the bedroom and Niall takes off his hat, ruffling the shock of trimmed but still messy hair at the top of his head. 

“No dye job this time?” Harry asks him, reaching across before he can stop himself to run his fingers through Niall’s hair. It feels soft. “Do know who else has --”

He has to stop himself before he tells him about Zayn. The words catch at the back of his throat and he hacks it into a cough. Niall’s eyes narrow and Harry can hardly see them, they’re standing so close. 

Harry turns his mouth up into a smile. “I’ll shower and then we can do dinner. Get it done early so you can crash if you want to.”

Niall nods, rewarding Harry with a small smile finally. “Yeah, didn’t sleep on the plane at all.”

Harry slides his palm out of Niall’s hair, settles it on his shoulder. He rubs his thumb behind his ear and feels Niall relax into it. He’s missed him. The relief that Niall’s not ignoring him on purpose palpable. “Want to join me?”

Harry finds himself holding his breath waiting for his answer. It’s only been a few days but it feels like an age since Niall loomed above him, licking into his mouth. He doesn’t really think that Niall will have drastically changed his mind. Harry’s a bit confused about it all together but he figures that that’s half to do with spending the time away with Zayn. 

Niall stares at him for a moment, his gaze unwavering. Harry finds himself staring back, as if it’s some sort of test. He wants to have the right answer so he keeps his hand on Niall’s shoulder, lets his face fall into an open expression. Lets Niall read him. 

“Okay,” he says softly and Harry finds himself smiling again, biting his lip to stop it becoming too much of a grin in case he looks wolfish. Niall laughs, something short and rough. Harry hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. 

He tries not to be too eager, sliding his hand down until he can link their fingers together. He figures it must be because Niall’s missed him too. The thought makes him happy -- builds him up from how he’s been feeling disjointed about it all week. 

He sets the water pressure before he starts to strip down. Niall’s in so many layers that it takes him longer, even with Harry messing about with the many knobs and gauges on his shower. He isn’t sure why he just didn’t get a simple tap turner -- spin and you’re on. Maybe he’ll redo the bathroom next. 

“Flight okay?” Harry asks because they’ve lapsed into silence again. He should’ve put on something on the Bose system but his phone is somewhere in his study-cum-studio. He can hear the buttons on Niall’s shirt ping on the marble tiles as he drops at his feet. 

They usually never devolve into small talk but the few days at home haven’t brought back Niall’s particularly chatty side. Harry’s a little bit disappointed that Louis’s promises of Niall’s mood haven’t materialised. It’s becoming ever clearer that this quiet side is just reserved solely for him now.

“Yeah,” Niall says, following him into the shower. Harry can feel the shadow of his body behind him, close but not touching. Harry’s deafened for a moment as he pushes his head under the spray, hair plastered to his cheeks as he turns his back to the wall of the shower. 

Niall presses in after him, smiling slightly when he catches Harry’s gaze. 

The longing Harry’s been feeling the past few days gets a name as Harry realises how much he’s missed him. Niall keeps pressing into the spray, water splattering down over his shoulder. 

“Scrub my back?” Harry asks as a joke but comes out raw at the back of his throat. 

Niall snorts in response so it’s still a surprise when he feels Niall lean in past him to grab the bottle of shower gel, one hand resting on his hip so he doesn’t slip over. Niall’s hands press gently into his shoulders and Harry can’t help let out a quiet noise. 

Niall pushes his thumbs into his shoulder blades, sweeps his hands down Harry’s spine and around his waist. It smells citrusy, heady with fruit and steam. Niall spreads his fingers across Harry’s chest, steps in close until Harry can feel the brush of his skin against his back. 

It takes a moment for Harry to realise that Niall’s hugging him -- that his hands have stopped moving and that he’s curled himself close, his cheek tucked into Harry’s shoulder blade. Harry reaches up, one hand curling around the soap dish attached to the wall and the other spreading over Niall’s splayed hand. Niall shifts closer and Harry grips at his fingers, interlocking them over the thud of his heart. 

“It’s nice to have you back,” Harry says, his voice choked up by the unexpected closeness. Niall doesn’t say anything but stays tucked against his back. The water batters down on Harry’s skull and he turns his head so he can hear Niall’s rough breathing over it. 

He twists his torso -- nearly overbalancing -- and mouths blindly for Niall’s. Niall laughs softly, stepping back so Harry can turn properly before meeting him in a kiss. 

It’s slippery, the water rolling down Harry’s cheeks and neck as Niall kisses him, his fingers trailing down Harry’s back so his nails scratch gently across Harry’s skin. It tingles, makes the blood coursing through Harry’s veins run a bit faster. It would be easy to push Niall up against the shower wall and rut against him like this, all wet and slippery. 

“Nice to be back,” Niall finally replies, his hands sliding up Harry’s sides, most of the suds gone now. Harry catches the glint in Niall’s eye just before he pushes his hands up into Harry’s armpits, making him squirm. 

“Fuck off,” Harry moans, trying to twist away from him without falling over. He gasps for breath, Niall’s hands everywhere. 

Niall cackles and shoves him out of the way, reaching for the shower gel again. “Get clean you soppy bastard.”

Harry grins, knowing full well he looks strange just staring at him under the spray of the shower. Niall’s cheeks pink up when he catches him, rolling his eyes when Harry doesn’t move. 

“Come on,” he says, his mouth curving into a grin. “Harry.” 

Harry laughs. There’s an immature disappointment in not getting to touch Niall like that, in not having it lead down the path it normally would but there’s something knowing in Niall’s smile that makes anticipation spark low in Harry’s belly. 

Next time, he thinks. To be continued. 

*

They go to the Nice Guy because Niall looks a bit strung out to deal with pushy crowds and it’s Harry’s favourite haunt at the moment, anyway. They sit in one of the booths with the psychedelic patterns and Harry feels like he’s been plunged into the ‘70s. Except that Niall keeps flicking through his new iPhone and tapping his credit card against the edge of his menu like he’s eager to get out of there already. 

It’s loud in an arbitrary sort of way -- the bigger tables all full of dinner party crowds, a few people lined up against the bar, the tinkling piano music just loud enough to be heard over the din. Harry doesn’t mind, he’s not sure what to really talk about anyway. 

“We’ll get a fancy drink,” Harry announces because he needs to get Niall out of his head. He looks like he’s about to vibrate out of the chair. He had been quiet in the car over, not even complaining that Harry had called a driver. He keeps running his thumb over his collarbone, dragging his nail through the hair that’s sprouted there. It’s distracting, Harry’s mouth going dry when he looks at the open collar of his shirt.

Niall orders a burger and Harry a quinoa salad. They get half way through a punch bowl of Bobby Soxer because Harry deemed it a no-brainer that they had to order it, Niall giving him a half smile as they took the first sip of Bourbon and lemon, wincing at the bite of cayenne pepper. 

“Bobby would not approve,” Niall had said, washing down the cocktail with a handful of chips the size of matchsticks. Harry had snorted, filled up his glass and then flagged down a waiter to order a vegetarian pizza because quinoa wasn’t going to cut it if they were planning on drinking whiskey by the flagon.

They eat and drink and Harry feels the tension between his shoulders unravel as he sinks into the high back of his chair. The dinner party leaves in a roar of laughter and calls to the waiters who descend to clean their plates. Harry watches as they traipse to the door. Just like that, the noise in the bar is cut in half. 

Harry is teetering on the line to Too-Drunk when he looks back at Niall and says, “should’ve ordered the oysters.”

“Hmm?” Niall asks, he’s staring into his vintage champagne cocktail coupe. There’s sugar daubed around the rim, only half of it licked off. They’d moved onto the rest of the cocktail list once they’d gotten tired of the bite of lemon, racking up a nice array of colourful fruity drinks. Niall looks more mellow but Harry feels wired, the alcohol making him run hot. He taps his finger against the stem of his own glass. He’s only got a little bit of something at the bottom, a pink the colour of candy floss but tastes like apricot. 

“It’s an aphrodisiac.” It takes him three attempts to actually say it and by then Niall’s giggling, sliding down an inch or two below the table until Harry can feel his knees pressed against his underneath. “Niall,” Harry whines playfully. “It is. I read it somewhere.”

“Must be true,” Niall agrees. He doesn’t attempt to sit back up properly, his elbows still perched ridiculously on the edge of the table when Harry can’t even see his chin. 

Harry laughs at him and presses their knees together. “It is. Could’ve gotten us in the _mood_.”

Niall’s slow descent underneath the table pauses, his eyebrows furrowing. Harry sips at his straw, feels the rough of Niall’s jeans through the hole in his own for a moment before the pressure is gone, Niall hauling himself up to sit properly. 

“Hey,” Harry complains, kicking his legs out to catch Niall round the ankles. “Come back. That was nice.”

“Do you mean that?” Niall asks. He looks so completely devastated for a moment that Harry’s insides squeeze with panic. Does he mean what? Harry can’t remember what he’s even fucking said.

Harry’s mouth feels overly sweet. He lets go of the straw. “What?”

“The oysters,” Niall whispers, leaning forward on his elbows until his face is in the middle of the table. Harry ducks in close too, until he can feel Niall’s breath on his lips. He smells of sugar too. 

It’s Harry’s turn to frown. His head feels a bit loopy, the edges of his vision fuzzing out. It’s a swimmy dim candle light inside now that they’ve finished serving dinner. He swallows down the sticky feeling at the back of his throat and puts on an exaggerated whisper -- Niall must be joking. “Yeah, get all sorts of things flowing --” he wiggles his eyebrows “-- down there.”

Niall’s face crumples and Harry has to sit up straight, his spine cracking he moves so quickly. He manages not to headbutt the low hanging exposed light bulb above their table. “What’s wrong? You can Wikipedia it, I swear --”

“No,” Niall hisses. Harry suddenly feels so much drunker than him. He wishes he hadn’t had the last two JoJos, the bubbles going straight to his head. Niall reaches forward and taps at Harry’s hand where he’s still got it curled around the stem of his glass. 

Harry goes to duck back in, his body reacting slowly. The overhead lamp is warm on the back of his head. He tries not to think of how it actually makes them more obvious when they’re trying to be discreet. “What is it. You can tell me anything.”

Niall eyes look very blue this close. Harry feels something unravelling in his gut. 

“You know I --” Niall starts. He presses his lips into a thin line, taps out a rhythm against Harry’s hand. Harry’s glass feels very warm in his hand. He wishes he could turn it over and grab Niall’s, but he can’t seem to uncurl his fingers from it. “You know I still love you? You know that just because we haven’t --”

Niall takes a sharp breath, as if he realises what he’s saying but Harry’s ears have faded into white noise. It feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath him, that Niall had thought he was actually _hinting_ with his joking. That Harry can boil Niall-and-him down to just purely physical fucking. That that’s all it’s worth to Harry.

“Fuck,” Harry swears. He can hear the wobble in his voice, the catch from the lump suddenly in his throat. “Niall. I --”

Niall looks unsure, his eyes bouncing from Harry’s face to the glasses between them to where the barmen are doing the last round of the floor. They’ve stayed longer than Harry had expected, his car will be waiting outside for them already, probably gathering the attention of a rake of paparazzi. 

Harry’s too drunk for this. 

“I love you too,” Harry tells him, as honestly as he can muster when he’s starting to slur. He hopes he can remember this tomorrow. He’ll try and write a memo in his phone just in case, something to jog his memory. But he’s not sure how he’ll forget the expression on Niall’s face. Broken, relieved, loved all in one. 

“Okay,” Niall says shakily. He closes his eyes and pulls a face. “I just --”

Harry’s breathing is starting to hitch and he knows he might start to cry if it gets any worse, his body giving into the sensation rather than Harry actually feeling sad. It happens sometimes, catching him unawares when he’s watching adverts at Christmas time or when he’s saying bye to his mum on the phone. He’s not actually sad but the pricking behind his eyes makes him feel too tight and exposed and need of some sort of release. 

Harry swallows down the last of his drink to get rid of the thickness in his throat and presses his palm over Niall’s hand. “Let’s go home. _Please_.”

Niall’s face tightens for a moment before he nods, gathering up his belongings. Harry takes so long fumbling for his wallet that Niall pays the hefty bill they’ve racked up with their drinks. He doesn’t look at him again but his hand is gentle on Harry’s back as he steers him towards the door. 

“Keep your head down,” Niall whispers to him. There are a few paparazzi there but he does as he’s told, keeps close to Niall even though he probably shouldn’t and watches the toes of his boots as they skirt down the inside of the sidewalk towards the waiting car. 

The back seat feels like sinking into a cave. The camera flashes bounce off the tinted windows and the driver is already waving off Niall’s apologies. He’s playing something twinkly on the radio but he flicks it over to a middle-of-the-road radio station before he pulls away from the curb. 

Harry’s mind is still reeling -- Niall had been worried about their sex life, or rather the lack of it. Harry’s gut twists because he’d been selfishly hoping to get into his pants tonight. Harry’d been worried in the same way you’d worry about missing tour -- that feeling of want muted by enjoying what you’re doing at the moment, the reassurance that it’s just a little break, that it’s always going to come back to you.

Harry takes a breath, trying not to think too hard about the fact that Harry hasn’t been bothered because he hasn’t been missing out at all. Harry’s been next door fucking Zayn. 

“Niall,” Harry says desperately, turning to where Niall’s slumped back into the chair playing with the case on his phone. “Niall, I --”

He should tell him. It comes as a crushing realisation to Harry, like he’s being dunked in an ice bath backstage, that he needs to be honest with Niall. That Niall deserves to know. 

But the guilt is twisting up inside him. Clanging cast iron bars, cold and dark and so sharp where they pierce through the soft layers of his insides. He can’t tell Niall. 

Not like this, strung out on cassis and patron. 

Not ever. 

Niall glances over at him, reaches out to hook their fingers together. “It’s alright. I’m just being paranoid. We haven’t really talked about it and I don’t know if we _are_ talking about it. I just --”

He cuts himself off again and Harry wants to tell him to stop, to tell him whatever is going on inside his head is valid and perfectly fine. That Harry will listen but maybe not right now as his face swims in front of him.

“We can talk about it,” Harry promises him. They’re already at the house, the traffic quick and easy this late at night. If it were five years ago, when Harry was young and foolish and unrecognisable, Harry would’ve suggested they walked the distance from the bar to his house. Twisting together under the night sky, hands tangled together as they shit-talked about everything under the sun.

“Tomorrow,” Niall suggests, already unbuckling himself from the seat. He sounds tired, his voice thick. 

Harry nods to himself, leads Niall into the house. They don’t even hang about downstairs, just head straight up to bed. The entire place smells of paint -- Harry hadn’t even realised it was so strong.

Harry pauses at his doorway. “Do you still want me to…”

Niall looks over his shoulder. He looks worn out again, like he had in the bar. Harry swallows down the burst of guilt. “Of course,” Niall murmurs, lifting a hand up to reach for him. Harry trips over the toe of his boots to touch him. 

They undress routinely, throwing their clothes together in the corner and taking turns to brush their teeth. Harry stares at himself in the mirror while he does his -- swapping the taste of prosecco for spearmint and taking in the shape of his eyes, the redness of them. 

Niall’s in bed by the time he’s finished. He’s on the left side and Harry finds it jarring that he’s found a new side of the bed, that he’s not leaving that space for their third anymore. Harry has to grit his teeth against the tightness in his throat. 

“Do you miss him?” Niall asks him, as if he could read Harry’s mind. It’s quiet, Harry’s window open and the bustle of LA feeling far away. 

Harry’s words get caught in his chest. He goes to say, ‘of course,’ but he can’t shake the fact that it’s a lie. He can’t miss something he’s still got.

“Sometimes,” Niall whispers. “Sometimes, I don’t think you do.”

Harry turns his head. Niall looks so far away, even though he’s only on the other side of the bed. Harry moves his hand under the sheets, searching for Niall’s. He can’t find it, Niall curled into a ball on his side and his hands tucked in somewhere close. 

“Sometimes I think that you’re _happier_,” Niall mumbles. Harry shifts across the mattress. There’s an irrational thought creeping through his head that Niall might shrink away. He doesn’t though, he lies there as Harry hooks an arm over his side and pulls him into his chest. 

“It’s a different type of happy,” Harry tells him. His words feel hollow. He bites his lip but can’t stop asking, “Is that why?” he sounds breathless, the way he asks it all in a rush. “Is that why you don’t want to --”

He can feel where Niall’s gone tense again. Harry swipes his hand up his chest. He doesn’t know why it’s so _awkward_. It’s Niall. Niall whom he’s shared everything with since he was sixteen and living away from home for the first time. It’s Niall who has laughed when Harry’s turned entire loads of washing pink, who reassured him when Harry was face down in a toilet bowl minutes before they went on stage, who he whispered under bedsheets with and told in halting sentences that he liked him and that he liked Zayn too, asking if that made him greedy. It’s Niall who had wrapped an arm over his waist, spooned up against him and said that he thought they should make something work together. 

“You smell like him,” Niall says, sounding half asleep already. He’s breathing heavy, his eyes closed. It makes it sound all the more intimate, like a secret Niall’s been keeping to himself and is finally letting Harry in on. 

Harry’s feels a flood of cold dread rush through his gut, his heart starting to thump. Beside him, Niall’s still shifting to get comfortable. He hooks his arm across Harry’s waist until they’re hugging properly, chest to chest and legs tangled.

“Or --” Niall murmurs, his lips hardly moving. He’s found a spot, his face close to Harry’s shoulder. --“he used to smell of you. I don’t know, anymore.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to come clean -- to tell him everything -- but he doesn’t even know where to start. 

Harry presses his lips together and then brushes them across Niall’s forehead, listening to Niall’s breath even out and the backdrop of the city falling asleep down the hill. 

*

When Harry wakes, Niall’s twisted away from him, the tangled sheets wrapped around his waist. Harry sighs, letting his eyes adjust slowly to the light streaming through the window. He pushes his hand across the mattress, feels the warmth of Niall’s body. He can see his vertebrae the way he’s curled, his body tight and breathing loose. 

There’s the vague lingerings of a hangover as he drags himself out of bed and he blames that for his foul mood. In the shower, he tries to calm the panicked stattaco of his heart, his mind running over every scenario in his head, pushing fruitless half-plans away because he hasn’t figured out what to do yet. 

He eats toast for breakfast because Niall’s bought bread and the crumbs stick to his still damp chest and spray all over the counter as he smears butter to the crust. 

He’s punching the buttons of the coffee machine when he hears the beep of a reversing van. Harry glances up, staring out through the kitchen window as the U-Haul reverses up the drive. 

Harry waits, breath shortening as it pulls to a stop outside Zayn’s gate. It’s quiet for a moment, the beeping stopped and it’s just like any regular Saturday morning -- the quiet neighbourhood, the chirp of a few scattered birds. Sometimes, when Harry closes his eyes this early, it’s as if his is the only house nestled into the hill.

And then the gates clang open next door and the van pulls into it, the incessant beeping starting up again as the van ascends the drive to Zayn’s door and disappears behind the tall shrubbery that offers the two neighbours a semblance of privacy. 

“Fuck,” Harry swears to himself, shock making him feel numb. The coffee machine sputters to life under his palm, roasting hot coffee dripping onto the bench below the nozzle. Harry hasn’t gotten a mug yet so it drips, coffee spilling over the edge onto the floor between his feet. 

Harry jerks when the first splash hits his barefoot. “_Fuck!_” he yelps and it’s a dam breaking inside him -- all the frustration and confusion bubbling up his gullet like hot, burning acid. He stares at the mess, his head a buzzing roar in his ears. He can feel pressure behind his eyes but he blinks through it, stumbling dazedly away from the coffee machine. 

The living room is still a mess, that toxic smell of fresh paint and white spirits that’s followed him around all weekend. 

Harry stumbles across to the tins of paint stacked in the corner to be put away and cracks the lid of the first one, the screwdriver slippery in his hand. 

His head is pounding with every thump of his heart. 

Zayn’s leaving. _Again_. Without a word. Without a fucking thought to Harry. Upping and leaving in the pre-morning light, just like fucking Hong Kong all over again.

Harry glares at the gloss of the paint. It’s the colour of porridge. 

Anger blazes through him for a moment, the hurt and betrayal all extra kindling. He’s been so foolish, risking everything. With Niall. With the band. With himself. For Zayn to just turn around and fuck him over like it wasn’t even worth a thought.

Harry yanks the tin by the handle, flinging it towards the south facing wall. Paint lurches out of the mouth and splatters across the wall in big, ugly splashes. Harry grunts at the exertion. He flings it again but the second time isn’t as satisfying, the paint slapping out onto the floor and dripping over Harry’s bare feet. He drops the tin onto the spattered sheet and turns his back on the mess, pushing out through the French doors to the fresh air. 

It’s getting hot already as Harry drops onto the sunlounger and closes his eyes to the sun. Up above the birds sing and Harry feels the fight drain out of him, the catch in his throat making it all fade away. 

Sometimes, Harry wishes he _was_ the only house on the hill.

| bancha | 

“Is it a Harry Styles original?” Niall asks, his forehead puckered into a frown. He’s shading his eyes from the sun and squinting a little but Harry knows that the confusion is all for him. “Maybe worth a bit when they name you as the new Banksy, eh?”

Harry ignores him, his headache ramped up to full throttle. 

“Are you ready to go?” Harry asks him, fiddling with his car keys. 

Niall’s frown deepens. “You should’ve woken me earlier if you were gonna be pissed off.”

“I’m not pissed off.”

“Tell that to your fucking face,” Niall says, turning to head back into the house. Harry follows him to the car, eyes downcast as they pass through the living room. He can’t even fucking look at the wall for shame of being so childish. 

Louis doesn’t say anything when they arrive together, twenty minutes late, but his eyes narrow slightly as Harry holds the door open for Niall to edge through behind him. They’d been mostly silent on the way over, sitting in LA traffic with the air-con hardly making a dent in the sweltering heat. 

“Oh no, Niall!” Liam says gleefully, bouncing around the side of the island to pull him into a hug. 

Niall shoves at his shoulder but he manages to make it playful. “Fuck off, Liam. I meant to fall over. Get over it already.”

Liam cackles, clutches him tighter. He pulls Harry into a similar hug after but Harry doesn’t call him out on how it seems a little short. 

Louis has put on a spread -- or paid someone to put on a spread because his kitchen still looks surprisingly un-lived in. 

Liam’s already piling a plate high of food, nattering away to Niall about what he’s been up to the past few weeks. Louis keeps catching his eye across the island, his lips twisted into a grim smile as he nods along with whatever Liam’s saying. 

\--”and then, remember, in Tokyo, with the ball and dressing gown --” Liam breaks off to laugh loudly, Louis grinning by his elbow. 

“And we had to go find you, Niall?” Louis chips in. “Wherever you had disappeared to --”

“I didn’t disappear,” Niall objects, his tone jovial. “You all fucked off without me. What was I meant to do?”

“Propped up against the bar, Purple Rain on the screen behind your head --” Liam stops to laugh again at the memory. 

Harry takes a breath, feeling distinctly out of the loop.

“You remember that, Haz?” Liam asks, working hard to bring Harry into the conversation. Harry fixes him with a bland smile and nods, not having a clue what he’s on about. 

The last time they were in Tokyo, Harry and Zayn begged off early to head back to the hotel. Karaoke wasn’t Zayn’s scene (Lou wouldn’t let him sing anymore Chris Brown) and Niall had agreed to meet them later, taking the extra keycard in case they were already asleep. 

Harry remembers getting high in the bathtub and rolling into bed still damp. He’d let Zayn sing whatever he’d wanted and they’d whispered words into each other’s skin, empty promises about lyrics and albums and all the future plans that were never to materialise. 

Niall had arrived in time for breakfast in bed and Harry hadn’t felt like he had missed out on anything at all, not when Zayn had smiled at him over the top of Niall’s head.

Harry’s stomach turns.

Niall passes him a plate, his forehead creased. “You’ll feel better when you eat.”

Harry nods, his fingers slipping on the edge of the china. Niall only takes his hand away when Harry gets a proper grip. Right -- the hangover -- and reaches for the salad bowl. 

“I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Liam says once they’ve -- Niall and Liam and Louis, that is -- all caught up and filled their stomachs. 

Harry glances up, catches his serious expression across the table. They’re in Louis’s back garden, their empty plates stacked in the middle of the table and a few empty beer bottles between them. 

Over Liam’s shoulder, Harry can see the LA skyline stretch across the horizon, the sun dipping low in the sky. 

Beside him, Niall’s reclined as far as the stiff garden furniture will let him. He looks stricken for a moment before his face relaxes into a smile. “I think we are?” he says, glancing between them. His eyes linger on Harry’s for a moment and Harry can see the hesitation, the lack of surety, before they move onto Liam. 

“We carry on,” Liam says, taking point. Harry can tell he’s working hard on keeping his tone encouraging. “We keep it moving and stick to the plan for the rest of the year?”

Harry huffs a laugh at the thought of one of Liam’s inspiring speeches. They’re well used to them when they used to be a nearly daily occurrence back before they even released their first album. It’s nearly endearing now. 

But Liam’s eyes snap to him and looks at him guardedly. “That okay with you Harry?”

He opens his mouth, hears the echo of Zayn telling him how much he’ll enjoy going solo. The acknowledgement that Liam might doubt Harry’s commitment burns a hole through him. 

Louis is looking at him carefully and from the corner of his eye he can see how Niall’s started to fidget with the label on the bottle of beer. Harry suddenly feels like he’s on another planet altogether. 

Harry feels a flush of irritation that his commitment has clearly been a topic of conversation behind his back. 

“_Yes_,” he says emphatically, his throat catching over the word.

It’s a surprise when Louis speaks at the same time. “I think we’re all on the same page on this one, Liam.”

Harry meets Louis’s gaze, feels something settle over the group immediately. They nod at each other, an understanding bridged between them.

Liam’s shoulders relax, a soft smile falling over his face. “Good.”

Harry doesn't point out that neither of the other two get questioned over their loyalty but he’s grateful it isn’t being pushed any further. Harry ducks his head, picks at the seam of his jeans. There’s a patch between his thighs that is starting to fray from where his legs rub together when he walks. He rubs his thumb over it, feeling out the rough edges of the denim. Niall’s hand slides slowly on to his thigh and gives it a squeeze. 

When Harry looks up, Niall’s looking the other way, a bright smile on his face. From above the table, you’d never be able to tell that his fingers were slowly massaging into his thigh. Harry breathes out slowly through his nose.

“We’re gonna do this,” Liam says reassuringly. “And it’s going to be so fucking good.”

“Of course it’s going to be good,” Louis scoffs and the mood lightens around the table. “Me and you are gonna write it, Li.”

Liam guffaws, reaching across the table to slap his hand in a high five. 

It doesn’t need to be vocalised, Harry knows what they’re all thinking. They _are_ all on the same page. That uniting urge to prove themselves, to be _good_, uniting them all. 

Harry wants that same surety Zayn’s chasing after. That knowledge that it’s all _for_ them, _by_ them. 

Harry feels the surge of adrenaline wear off sharply and there’s a pregnant pause around the table that drags on a touch too long.

“What is it?” Louis asks outright. “We’re being honest with each other remember?”

Niall pulls a face, like he already regrets suggesting that rule. Louis’s mouth looks sharp. Both of them drink from their beers, staring at each other. 

“Just feels strange doing this --” Niall finally breaks, lowering his hand from his mouth. He’s still got a hand on Harry’s thigh and it tightens slightly. “With just the four.”

Harry squeezes his knuckles, a touch too late. 

Louis’s face hardens. “We’re gonna do the best fucking album we can. Alright? We’ll show --”

Harry sucks in a breath. We’ll show _him_. The back of Harry’s eyes burn. 

There’s a beat of excruciating silence before Niall lifts the hand from Harry’s leg, holding it outstretched towards Louis instead and shifting the tone around the table. “Hands in.”

Liam laughs brightly, struggling out of his slouch to reach for him but Harry’s hand reaches first, warm on top of Niall’s knuckles. He curls his fingers, properly grips at Niall’s hand. Niall gives him a smile, his eyes relieved and Harry feels something burst inside his chest as two other hands slap down on top of his. 

*

Zayn replies to his email four days later. Niall’s been slipping in and out of the house, managing to write with a string of other people whilst Harry’s been pretending he isn’t moping. Everything he’s been trying to write has ended up shredded or crumpled in the bottom of his bin. 

**LAX 15.45**

Harry stares at it, eyes burning. There’s nothing else. 

He considers, briefly, not going. A taste of his own medicine. But somehow he finds himself pulling up through the heavy traffic just before half past three. 

Zayn greets him with a soft, sleepy smile. “Hi,” he says, climbing into the car all elbows as he wrestles out of his backpack and jacket. He smells of smoke, of the recycled air of the plane, of stale sweat. It fills up the car immediately and Harry can’t help how it makes him want to press his nose to Zayn’s neck despite the confused anger smouldering at the base of his gut. 

“Where to?” Harry asks, his voice taut. Zayn glances at him, his eyes narrowing as he settles into the chair and pulls on his seat belt. 

“You sound like a fucking taxi driver,” Zayn says, the inflection in his voice trying to make it light but Harry can hear the wariness in it. 

Harry shrugs, hands gripped around the steering wheel. He stares at the car in front, a man climbing out to greet the person he’s picking up. He swings her up into his arms -- must be his girlfriend -- and they look inseparable, their hands gripping and clutching at each other. 

Meanwhile, there’s a gulf of space between Harry and Zayn. 

Harry decides to be blunt. “You’re not living in your house anymore.” 

Zayn’s shoulders drop and he laughs, humourless. “Knew there was something up your ass.”

Harry ignores the jibe, flexes his palms against the leather. They can’t sit here all day. 

“Beverly Hills Hotel,” Zayn tells him and Harry snicks on the indicator, pulling out into the traffic. Harry feels a cheap thrill at being right. 

Zayn lets out another hollow laugh, as if he could read Harry’s face. “I got chucked out of the house.”

Harry’s heart trips. “What?”

Zayn rolls his eyes, slumps down low in the seat. His knees are bony through the rips in his jeans as he props them up on the dash. 

“I was being too loud,” Zayn mutters, his shoulder hiding half of his profile. Harry glances at him and then back at the road, the afternoon traffic slow and sluggish back towards the city. “With the music. The owner got a few complaints.”

Harry snorts, his head dizzy with the sudden weight lifting off his shoulders. “Wasn’t me, I swear.”

Zayn laughs quietly but doesn’t look at him. Harry bites at his lip, pulls at the skin that’s peeling.

“I thought --” Harry starts and then stops himself. He isn’t sure if he should even tell Zayn what he thought. If it’ll matter.

Zayn turns his face, looks at him softly. “I know what you thought.”

“Sorry,” Harry apologises quietly, his insides squeezing together. 

Zayn rolls his eyes, goes back to scrolling through his phone. “It might be better anyway. We were bound to be found out sometime.”

Harry glances across at him. “Found out.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. He looks exhausted and Harry knows he hasn’t slept on the plane. There’s something loaded in his look and it twists at Harry, doesn’t make him feel better. It’s not that it’s a _secret_, it’s just that Harry doesn’t know how to go about smoothing everything out at the moment. 

Zayn’s nearly asleep by the time Harry pulls up the intimidating drive to the hotel. Harry hesitates, wondering if he’s just dropping him off but Zayn gives him a sleepy, half lidded look and Harry pulls in, handing his keys to the jacketed valet. 

They duck into the foyer together, Zayn going up to the desk to organise himself. Harry knows he doesn’t have to worry about gossiping here -- the staff have been well trained that he and Zayn arriving together shouldn’t get out anywhere.

Yet, he keeps his distance, sinking into a plush velvet chair near the doorway and far removed from the reception desk. 

He slides his phone out of his pocket, checks for any messages from Niall. That cold feeling of betrayal is creeping back again and he thinks about leaving, heading back home before he makes this so much worse but he’s frozen in the chair, his legs locked until Zayn appears at his knee.

“C’mon,” he mutters, a key dangling from his little finger. 

Zayn’s PA has arranged for one of the bungalows for him. It’s tucked away behind a row of bristling trees, the mint green and pale pink buildings making everything marshmallowy sweet to look at. 

There’s a little path up to his door and it feels quaint, like he’s stuck inside a celluloid ‘70s dream complete with a white picket fence and pastel stone flagging. Inside feels more modern, the little living area that’s divided by the 60 inch television that’s as big as a wall. Some of Zayn’s stuff is stacked in the corner -- an ugly chair from the last house that must actually belong to Zayn and a few boxes with black lettering **clothes**, **recording equipment**, **random shit**. 

Zayn drops his backpack into one of the overstuffed armchairs and wanders around the bungalow, lighting all the lights. 

Harry follows him quietly, listlessly. Outside, the sun is going down and it’s hazy, that in between bit where the lamplight isn’t quite bright enough to make up for the darkening sky outside. It’s too quiet in the living room and Harry can’t listen to the TV. 

Zayn stops in the bedroom, perching on the edge of the bed with his knees spread. Harry stares at him from the doorway, drinking him in.

He still looks tired from travelling and he should probably shower, his hair a greasy mess flopping over his forehead. He hasn’t turned the lights on in here, his face half in ghostly shadow.

There’s something unnerving in the way Zayn looks at him. It’s nearly lazy the way he leans back on a hand, his legs spreading wider. 

Harry steps forward, looking down at the shadows below Zayn’s eyes, the sunken look of his cheeks under his stubble. 

Zayn reclines back slowly, keeping his gaze. He plants an elbow on the duvet, showing off the long line of his torso. Harry steps between his knees.

It feels like a taunt. Harry stares at him, his hands shaking. 

Just another game. 

Zayn raises his eyebrows and Harry slides his knee onto the bed, slowly lifting the other up and over until he’s straddling Zayn’s waist on the bed. 

Zayn smiles -- sly, smug. It makes Harry’s blood thrum. Zayn lifts his hands, Harry stares at them before they settle on Harry’s hips. 

“I can’t stay long,” Harry warns him. He hesitates, Zayn’s hands starting to move under his shirt. “We’re --”

Zayn raises an eyebrow again, his knee coming up to press against Harry’s hip. He’ll wrestle him onto the bed if Harry hesitates any longer. 

“We’re supposed to be on the telly, later,” Harry blurts. Zayn’s hands still, his fingers pressed against Harry’s abdomen. “Corden.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything, his chin tipping up for Harry to kiss him. 

They don’t talk about it. It’s nearly an unspoken rule at this point that Harry doesn’t tell him about anything the band are up to now. But Harry wants to keep speaking. Wants to see what he thinks. If he can get anything more than a narrow of an eye or a furrow of a frown whenever anything about the band comes up.

It isn’t some fucking taboo subject. It’s something that’s still a huge part of Harry’s life. And still should be a part of Zayn’s life too, even if he has stepped away.

“It’ll be the first proper interview…” Harry says against his lips, trailing off. Zayn’s eyes are too close to focus on, his eyelashes long and dark. 

“Shut up, Harry,” Zayn mutters, his lips finally closing over Harry’s mouth. 

Harry pours his frustration into it, kissing Zayn brazenly back. It sets the tone, Zayn’s hands pinching at Harry’s skin, his mouth scraping over his jaw and neck, nearly raw enough that it’ll show on camera. Harry rolls them, both of them fighting to get their clothes off. 

Harry has nearly a vindictive urge to keep talking considering it’s pissing Zayn off so much but then Zayn bites down across his hip, his mouth opening to let Harry fuck against his tongue and all Harry can manage is Zayn’s name on the edge of a breathy moan. 

It’s frantic, Zayn pinning him down, and too quick. Both of them chasing it because it’s been a few days and not because they’re there for each other. Harry looks away from Zayn’s face, his expression too much as Zayn coaxes a quick orgasm out of him. 

“Harry,” Zayn murmurs so softly that Harry feels like his chest is too small for his heart.

“C’mere,” Harry urges him, breathless. Zayn slide up against him and Harry grips at him everywhere, a hand to his bicep, fingers to his chin. They’re too hot pressed this close but they wind around each other, Harry sucking the taste of himself off Zayn’s tongue as they press impossibly close together until Zayn’s cock is trapped snuggly between their bodies and there’s enough friction for him to go quiet and shaky in Harry’s arms. 

“I should go,” Harry mumbles when he comes back round. Under the warmth in his skin, he feels a bit empty, still restless. 

There’s light from the landing spilling in from the open door and it’s just enough that Harry can make out Zayn’s profile. “Yeah?” Zayn responds. He’s gone quiet again, the tone of his voice suggesting that he doesn’t want to talk about where Harry’s going off to. 

Harry’s quiet for a moment. His palm is resting on Zayn’s belly, warm and slightly sticky. Zayn’s pulled the sheets up so they’re slung half over Harry’s knuckles. The difference in textures is nice. He feels small, curled up into Zayn’s side when he asks, “Will you watch it?”

Zayn snorts, his shoulder jostling. “No.”

Harry’s stomach sinks. He’s not sure why. He hadn’t been expecting him to, not really. Or maybe he’s just so disappointed in hearing it vocalised. 

Harry pulls away from him without thinking, uncomfortable with the clammy feeling of Zayn’s sweat and come under his palm, the sheets sticking to his legs, the damp spot in the sheets. 

“Hey,” Zayn says but it isn’t soft or imploring. It’s chiding. “I don’t need to watch some interview to watch you all insincerely wish me well. I’ve sat through enough of them myself to know it’s bullshit.”

Harry rolls on over, stares at the blank space on the opposite wall. It’s a pale mint green and it looks nearly sickly with the way the last of the day’s sun is hitting it. “What if we don’t want to wish you well?”

He can’t say it to his face but he needs to get it out. Harry breathes shallowly, something tightening in his chest and he pushes himself to sit at the edge of the bed. 

Behind him, Harry can feel the weight of the bed shift and then a set of fingers ghosting down his spine. “Don’t be like that,” Zayn tells him, his voice thin and sharp. “Don’t be a fucking child about it.”

Harry ignores him, looking for his underwear. His clothes are strewn across the room and Harry hates himself for getting so into the moment that he flung them so far away. He stands up, ignoring the vulnerability of being so naked in front of Zayn when he’s so angry at him. 

And he is angry, Harry realises with sharp acuity. All the anger slotting into where he feels it most.

“Harry,” Zayn sighs from the bed, slumping back down against the mess of sheets. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

Harry pulls his jeans on without his boxers, desperation itching at him to just get the fuck out. 

_Sorry_ would be start. 

He can’t bring himself to say it, the words lodging in his throat. 

“Harry,” Zayn calls after him as Harry makes for the door. 

Harry hardly looks at him, he can’t let Zayn see the frustration welling in his expression. It’s been building since Zayn got in the car, been building for days and weeks. “Fuck you,” he spits over his shoulder, the door to the cabin slamming shut behind him. 

*

“Where the fuck have you been?” Ben asks him outright as Harry jogs into the studio. Ben’s eyes scan over him, his mouth turned up. Harry knows he looks a mess -- frazzled, dirty and desperate. 

“Traffic,” Harry tells him, brushing past him towards where the dressing rooms are. The halls are a buzz of people and it’s so different to any time he’s been before -- the full team working hard to get the show ready for tonight. There’s a low din of the audience already seated. 

Ben shadows him up the hall, his face like thunder. “You missed the rehearsal. _Everyone_ was wondering where you were.”

Any response from Harry is forgotten when he gets to the dressing room. 

“Harry,” Louis snaps when he pushes through the door. Whatever fraught bridge they’ve built is quaking. “What the fuck?”

Niall’s in the corner, a bottle of beer between his thighs. His out-right relieved expression sends Harry reeling. 

“I’m here now,” Harry snaps back at him, not ready for Louis’s acidity tonight. His nerves already feel frayed, making him jittery. Harry grabs a bottle of water from the counter, not caring who it belongs to. It’s lukewarm but he drains half of it, the taste of Zayn at the back of his throat. 

“Well, thank fuck for that,” Louis snaps back sarcastically, stomping over to throw himself onto the sofa beside Niall. “Time waits for no-Harry-Styles, hmm.” They look ready -- hair swooped and new clothes on, both of them frowning.

Lou gives him a look, concern overriding her irritation as she grabs his shoulder. “You need a shower,” she mutters quietly, turning him away from the rest of the team and band before a row breaks out.

“What’s happened?” she asks him, just before she closes the bathroom door on him. Harry stares at her, his mouth opening but tongue feeling too big. “Two minutes,” she warns and leaves him with a confused, sympathetic look as the door snaps shut. 

The water is cold but Harry doesn’t have time for it to heat up. He strips off, sticks his head under the spray. It makes him gasp, the icy water pricking into his skin until he feels chilled to the bone. 

Lou bangs at the door, reminding him of how late he is and he has to pull himself away, dragging a hand towel over his limbs to dry himself before Lou’s opening the door and thrusting clothes at him. Harry’s never been so glad that they started to ask for underwear on their riders as a joke. He pulls a pair of new Calvin Klein’s on and then the new jeans.

The dressing room is empty except for the pair of them, the rest of the team next door or filtering down towards the stage. It’s a touch too warm after all the blowdrying Lou’s done today -- her hair has gone a bit frazzled at the end and Harry feels the heat sitting on his skin, the beginning of a sweat at the nape of his neck.

Lou gives him an unimpressed look and points to the chair she’s using today for set-up. She starts pulling the brush through his damp hair, Harry’s skull moving in rhythm to it as she gets the snarls and knots out of the wet curls. 

Her fingers brush over his neck and Harry catches the way they hesitate at the dark, purpling bruise there. It’s visible through the deep V of his shirt. 

“Been a while since I’ve had to cover one of these,” she says, lightly. She pokes at it, the bruise stinging. Harry looks away, feeling hot. 

She presses it again in purpose and reaches for the hairdryer.

“I’ve been seeing Zayn.” 

He gasps as soon as he says it. For a moment he hopes she didn’t hear him over the low hum of the hair dryer but Lou’s eyebrows raise and she’s frozen, her hand up in the air with the hairbrush. Her denim clad hip still cocked. 

Harry takes another breath and feels some of the tightness in his chest ease as he gets it all out in the open. “He’d moved in on my street and one day I just seen him so I went over and we slept together and I keep going back.” He gets it all out in a rush and it feels addicting, that relief that spreads over his muscles and seeps into his bones. 

To not keep it a secret anymore. 

To finally tell someone about it. 

Lou clicks off the hairdryer and the room is silent. She stares at him in the mirror, her mouth opening a little. Harry can’t pull his eyes away. It’s painful in a good way, like someone finally looking at him, finally seeing.

“Niall’s been staying at mine,” Harry says before she says anything. “And he has no idea about it and I can’t tell him because he’s still really upset--” Harry cuts off, screwing up his face. He feels on the edge of hysterical. “They _all_ are. Liam’s like a wounded puppy and Louis is so _angry_ and Niall-- Niall just isn’t talking about it at all. Actually, I’ve no idea if he’s still upset. I’ve no idea what he’s feeling. He’s been lying next to me every night and I have no idea what --”

Harry finally looks away from her, stares at the line of hair products lined up on the bench in front of him. “That’s where I went today. To see Zayn. But it’s just eating away at me and I feel so guilty and he just doesn’t seem to give a shit about the band anymore. He seems so bitter about it and --”

Harry takes a sharp breath in, already talking on the exhale. “I’m the _angry_ one. How can he -- Why did he -- Why is he allowed to be angry when he’s the one who --”

Lou’s face falls just like Harry expected it to. “Oh, Harry,” she said, shaking her head a little bit. 

Harry feels a roll of nausea. There had been that high of getting it all off his chest but it’s just meant that he’s got further to fall. Lou looks physically disappointed in him. Harry glances away from her reflection feeling revolted in himself. 

“Fuck,” he swears to himself, slumping into the chair. He wants to bury his head in his arms but that would ruin all the work Lou’s done to his hair and he’d probably just feel worse. 

Lou squeezes his shoulder gently. “You need to talk to Niall.”

Harry swallows the well of saliva under his tongue. Harry’s been dodging that particular train of thought for a while now. 

Lou squeezes tighter. “Harry,” she says sternly and Harry glances up into the mirror. “You _have_ to. He deserves to know.”

“I know,” Harry says shakily. “It’s just --”

Lou looks unimpressed and Harry knows he sounds like he’s making excuses. Niall deserves _better_.

And it _is_ an excuse. That’s the worst bit. How he’s aware of how his house of cards are on the brink of collapsing but he’s _continuing_ to do it. 

“I can’t help it.” Harry stares at her. “I lo--”

His breath catches on _love_ but Lou gets it anyway. She has always known more than she’s ever let on. Always known that three of them have gotten tangled up together long ago. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Harry tells her, honesty bleeding through his words. It sticks in his throat and he coughs roughly to clear it. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be looking out for.”

Lou gives him a look. "You need to look out for yourself. But you still have to tell him."

Harry picks at a thread in the seam of his trousers. A 3000 dollar pair of trousers and they still have loose threads. It takes a few tries before Harry’s able to grip it between his clumsy fingers. 

What does Lou know anyway? It's between him and Zayn and Niall. 

Lou prods him in the shoulder with the end of the hairbrush, always one step ahead. “He deserves to know. So he can look out for himself too. Don’t be an asshole, Harry.”

Over Lou's shoulder, Harry sees the door open. Liam lopes through, all smiles and crinkled eyes. Underneath it all, though, Harry can see something hard forming. Something protective. “You bloody scared us there, H. Ben’s all in a tizz.”

Conversation over, Harry thinks with relief. He pastes on a grin to match Liam’s. “Wouldn’t do that to you,” he says, honestly. 

Lou frowns and sprays a cloud of hairspray. Harry swallows the bitter taste in his mouth without complaint.

*

“What do we do if he turns up?” Liam is the first one to ask it. His voice quiet in a brief lull of conversation between the four of them in the back of the car. 

Harry bites his tongue. He hasn’t spoken to Zayn since he left him in the Beverly Hills Hotel but he knows he won’t show up. Awards were hardly even his thing when he was still interested in the band, nevermind having to do it now. 

Louis’s already screwing his face up but Harry doesn’t listen to whatever diatribe he comes out with now. His bitterness is starting to wear thin. 

Niall doesn’t answer either, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

He had been quiet in the plane but Harry hadn’t really been that chatty either. He knows he’s being a bit of a dick, Niall seeing through his smiles for cameras, for Ben, for the meetings they seem to be able to jam into airport waiting rooms and foyers of hotels now. 

The album is going a mile-a-minute. Harry’s thrown himself into writing with varying degrees of success. Niall’s doing his own stuff too but both of them know that Louis and Liam have been firing out songs like no tomorrow. 

Harry’s fine with it. He’s used to it. That’s how they make albums. 

Niall looks good, the suit tailored perfectly in a sharp cut. He’s wearing sunglasses even though it’s dark inside the car, the tinted windows blocking out most of the Las Vegas sun. It kind of makes him look like an asshole but Harry knows he’s trying to do some damage control on how red his eyes are. Niall’s been heading out a lot now, hitting it hard. Harry’s been doing much the same. 

Harry likes Las Vegas the same way he likes other shiny and glitzy things -- in small doses. There’s a brittle layer of fakeness at these types of things, all the bright white smiles and perfect lipgloss hiding the stench of desperation. They used to look around at these types of awards shows with wide eyes but now Harry’s gotten used to them, he can see past the glamour.

Harry knows that Niall loves it here, that he’s gunning for returning for his birthday again this year. Harry missed the last one, begging off from the partying and instead spending the days after helping Niall rehydrate and taking him apart, breathless and panting, in his bed when they got back to LA. 

Zayn had decided to go last minute and now -- with the beauty of hindsight -- Harry can see how that was so unlike him. 

All the same, it had made Harry feel less guilty for missing it. That Zayn was there to make sure Niall had a good birthday. It was a perk of being a three.

Now, Harry wishes nothing more that they’d spent more time together. All _three_ of them, together. Time was never in short supply and yet they wasted it. Harry’s starting to think that he’s missing that the most, the HarryNiallZayn of it all. 

“We just ignore him,” Liam says, his voice decisive. He nods, as if to punctuate it. For a quick moment, he’s reminiscent of his dad. “Don’t mention him and they won’t bring him up.”

Louis bristles. “He’s not a fucking genie. I don’t think we’ll have much of a choice of it coming up.”

For once, Harry agrees with him. It’s a false hope. Harry knows the press will be itching for an exclusive. 

Liam huffs a laugh but his face is pinched into a deep frown.

“Why do _we_ have to ignore _him_?” Louis keeps poking at the wound as the car slows.

Harry zones out again as they start bickering between themselves. Niall’s got his face turned towards the window, his shaded eyes seemingly staring out at the street. Harry nudges him with his foot, just a quick tap where Niall’s feet are tucked between Harry’s on the floor between them. It makes Harry feel queasy going backwards sometimes.

Niall glances around, gives him a flat smile. Harry can’t see if it reaches his eyes. 

“Just,” Liam says, huffing a great sigh. “Just do your best.”

Louis rolls his eyes and reaches for the door handle. “He doesn’t deserve our best.”

They’re bombarded with questions anyway. Harry watches as Louis’s jaw gets tighter and tighter at every mention of Zayn’s name. Liam looks agitated as well as they head into the theatre off the red carpet. Niall’s still hidden behind his shades but he’s jovial, his mouth a wide grin as he chit chats with celebrities and interviewers off E! that Harry can never remember the name of. 

It’s sometimes scary to see how well Niall can pull off Laid Back-and-Unfazed. It’s a world away from how Niall can be quiet and pensive and bottled up at home. 

It calms Harry though. To see this in action. Gives him space inside his body to be loose and happy and to laugh along with Niall. Fuck off into some parallel mindspace where none of this is actually happening. 

If Niall can do it, so can Harry. 

It was the same at the taping for Corden. Under the bright lights, Harry had relaxed into the muscle memory of being in front of the camera, of tucking up close to Niall and stealing the calm radiating off him. It had briefly tamped down the anxiety that's been making him ill since he last saw Zayn. 

Niall pulls him into the seat beside his for the awards and Harry reaches for him when they win, a quick and happy slap to the inside of his thigh. Just high enough. Enough to make Niall bark out a bright laugh into Harry’s ear. 

That way, Harry can pretend that nothing is wrong. The sound alone keeps him afloat until they get back to the hotel. 

He stayed sober for the ceremony, skating around awkward conversations with other popstars, some of whom they were more acquainted with than others, with a clear head until it was over and they were ushered into a dark club, tables laden with bottles. Louis had passed him a bottle of beer, followed by a bottle of champagne, followed by a perfectly pinched bump of coke, in quick succession before disappearing with Liam and a gleam in his eye. 

Harry hadn’t really meant to stay out late, getting caught up talking to people, his grip tight around a few too many flutes of champagne. It was kind of nice though, a slow release the more he drank, another hit to keep him going. Louis and Liam were dancing, an orbit of girls around them, Marco had slipped away after a sensible drink or two. He had lost Niall somewhere in the crowd and he’s been hanging on until he catches a glimpse of him tucked into the back of a busy booth.

He comes back to himself in the bathroom, looking at his washed-out face in the artificial lights. Too drunk, eyes wide, face pale. The back of his head reflects off the mirror behind them, his reflection bouncing between the two mirrors until he’s just a speck off in the distance.

It’s a bit trippy. Harry leans into it, twenty elbows landing against the tile.

There’s an attendant sitting by the sinks, his face blank with boredom as he passes Harry a towel when he’s washed his hands. He offers Harry a spray of something in a shiny bottle and Harry drunkenly starts to strike up a conversation when a loud moan emanates from one of the stalls. 

Harry’s head jerks, glancing over. Another man by the urinals starts to laugh, his face pale, eyes wide. “Hey!” his American accent cuts across the bathroom. “Any room in there for me?”

The couple are quiet for a moment and then there’s another loud moan that nearly makes Harry want to laugh. The drunk guy zips up, stumbles over to where Harry is and reaches into the little stash of toiletries the attendant has by the mirrors. 

“Think they’ll be putting these to better use,” he slurs at Harry, grabbing a fistful of condoms from the bowl and disappearing off towards the stalls, his laugh echoing around the bathroom. 

The attendant shakes his head in disapproval, following him. “Excuse me, sir!”

One of the condoms falls to the floor by his feet. Harry stoops, his balance off with all the champagne he’s drank. He goes to replace it but shoves it into his pocket instead, feeling his face get hotter. 

The other two don’t seem to notice, -- they’re in a proper argument now -- and Harry’s grateful. He could see the headlines now -- _Styles too stingy to buy his own condoms…_

It’s not like he really needs it anyway. 

He _could_ go and find Niall and they could be back into these bathrooms in a matter of minutes. Harry swallows the well of saliva in his mouth. He’d be louder than whoever is in there now, he’d make sure he was. 

Harry shakes himself and leaves the bathroom before the attendant comes back. The music hits with a whoosh, nearly too loud as he goes back to linger in the area they’ve roped off for themselves. It doesn’t take long for Niall to appear, his mouth turned up in an ever present smile. He looks drunk too, eyes wide when the lights strobe high enough that Harry can see him.

“Do you want to head back?” Harry asks, leaning too close into him when he reaches the table. His mouth brushes against Niall’s ear and Harry can feel his shiver against him, Niall’s hand coming up to clench at Harry’s arm to keep steady. 

Harry gives into the urge and drops his head so he can brush his lips against Niall’s neck. It’s late, everyone too drunk to notice. Harry lets himself have this moment, his face pressed into the sweaty hot juncture of Niall’s shoulder. His skin tastes damp when he kisses at Niall’s nape, Niall relaxing into him just a second before he pulls away. 

“Not here,” Niall says, showing more restraint than Harry feels capable of. His shirt feels too tight, skin too hot. He just wants out of there.

It takes longer than Harry appreciates to get back to the hotel. Niall says a round of goodbyes to what feels like the entire club and then they have to coordinate with security and drivers and concierges. By the time Harry slips into the hotel room after Niall he feels the beginnings of a hangover. 

Niall shucks off his suit jacket, throwing it over the back of the chair. The room is nice, the bed taking up only a quarter of the huge room. The curtains frame the view of the strip at night. Harry gets distracted by the glittering lights and the black black sky for a moment. 

“You want anything?” Niall asks, perching on the edge of the bed and holding out the room service menu. It’s reminiscent of the countless nights after a show -- before they started fucking properly -- where they’d pig out on stale french fries and watch shite on the telly before they finally fell into an exhausted sleep. 

They would wake up tangled together and had grown so close that when they finally did slip over the line, it felt like they’d already been there for some time before. 

Harry stares at him, takes in the awkward tense of Niall’s shoulders, rounded in on himself in the crisp white shirt. It’s creased now, under his arms soaking grey with sweat. He’d loosened the collar hours ago and Harry feels the phantom heat of his neck just looking at him. 

“No,” Harry says, not bothering to take the menu off him. “Yes --” he corrects himself. 

Niall looks up at him, his face open and gentle and young, Harry can’t believe so much time has passed since those forgotten days. 

Harry’s mouth feels very dry. “Want you.”

It’s on impulse that he takes his hand out of his pocket, fingers curled in a fist around the condom. He throws it onto the duvet beside Niall and it slides an inch on the silk overlay. 

Niall stares at it, his mouth opening so Harry can see the pink of his tongue. He’s still got the menu in his hand.

It suddenly feels too warm in the room. Harry screws his eyes shut so he doesn’t need to see Niall’s uncomfortable expression. This isn’t what would’ve happened three months ago. 

“It just --” Niall cuts himself off with a little twist of sadness. 

“What?” Harry asks quietly, suddenly scared to hear the answer. He opens his eyes and Niall’s looking up at him, his face tired. 

Niall shrugs, smiles a little ruefully. “Just feels weird. Like we’re missing something.”

Harry grits his teeth together. 

“And it’s not that you’re not enough,” Niall tells him, his voice stronger in conviction. Niall’s forehead is crumpled into a frown. One of his fists curled on his thigh and he raises it an inch, dropping it down again on his knee. “Because you _are_.”

Harry hadn’t even really thought of it that way. Or he had but the connections hadn’t quite gotten there in his mind yet. 

Niall always seems to be one step ahead. He always was, sitting in meetings with a knowing grin or having an answer prepped out of nowhere for another inane interview. He knew what he wanted with Harry before Harry really knew, knew how to fold Zayn into their intimate lives as if he had always been a part of them. 

Maybe that’s why this is so difficult. Maybe Niall’s already processed this all, worked it all out and knows where he stands. Harry can’t even figure out the boundaries of it yet.

This isn’t the moment to talk about it. Twenty floors up and strung out of champagne and whatever else. Harry takes a shuddering breath and has to turn away from him, his eyes catching on the strip stretching out far below them. All glittering lights and the glitz and glamour that Harry doesn’t fall for. It blurs together into magenta and cyan and bright gold until he blinks away the sudden wetness in his eyes. 

“Harry,” Niall says from behind him and his voice sounds choked. “I’m saying that isn’t the case.” 

Harry can see the blurred outline of Niall moving in the window reflection, the menu falling to the floor, his shadow moving closer. 

Harry thinks of the mirrors in the bathroom from before, the Harry in the reflection growing smaller and smaller with every new image of himself. He wonders if anyone can see him up here, shrunken down to a speck. Wonders if anyone would even care who he was.

Niall’s hand is gentle on his back, a point of pressure before it sweeps up to squeeze at his shoulder. Harry feels himself unclench, his body weight falling back into Niall’s chest. “It’s just different,” Niall whispers to him, his voice close. 

Harry nods. He gets it. He _will_ get it. 

It _is_ different. It should be. Maybe that’s where Harry’s going wrong? Trying too hard for it to be just like before, like nothing had changed. 

He’s spent all this time thinking Niall was the one so reluctant for change, that he was the one that wasn’t dealing but maybe neither of them are adapting very well to it.

Harry takes a shuddering breath at the thought that maybe it’s actually _him_ that’s the problem here.

“Harry?” Niall whispers and he sounds worried. He presses his hand to Harry’s stomach, trailing it up to press against his chest right over his heart. He’s sure to feel the pound of it against his palm.

Harry blinks away the leaching smear of lights in his vision and revels in the reassuring weight of Niall behind him. 

“I’ll have a cheeseburger,” Harry says, his voice all clogged up. “And chips. As many chips as they’ve got.”

Niall squeezes him and lets go slowly so Harry won’t fall straight back. Niall’s voice is still quiet when he goes to order from the kitchen, his eyes straying over to Harry whilst he’s on the phone. 

Harry turns away from the unsleeping street below them and heads back to the bed. The sheets are cool on his warm face as he lies down beside where Niall’s sitting against the headboard to use the phone.

“They’ll be twenty minutes,” Niall whispers, kicking off his shoes and shuffling closer to Harry on the bed. His hand is tentative at first, fingertips trailing across Harry’s forehead before sinking into his hair. 

Harry sighs out through his nose, muscles loosening as he relaxes into Niall’s touch. They used to do this a lot too, when one of them was feeling sad or missing home. 

They had developed their own little routine, figured out how to get all the comfort and intimacy they craved without anyone else having to be involved. And when that had turned into so much more, neither of them thought twice about it. 

Harry’s tinnitus feels overwhelming, the silence of the room heavy and loud.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers into his lap, his voice slurred. He’s too drunk. Everything feels _just_ out of reach, like Harry can’t even articulate the onslaught of emotion inside his chest. 

Niall pets through his hair, his hand never faltering. “You don’t have to apologise,” he says quietly. “I know I’ve been holding out on you. It’s just hard for me still, to work out how I --”

Niall pauses, his fingers twisting in Harry’s hair. He scratches his nails gently against Harry’s skull, up to shadow along the shell of Harry’s ear. It feels like every hair on his head is standing on end, Harry’s skin lighting up under Niall’s hand. 

“I just don’t know how to talk about it yet,” Niall confesses, honesty making him breathless. “Don’t really know what all this means about the band and us and --”

Harry’s eyes burn and he rolls over, the back of his skull cradled in Niall’s hand and lap. He’s still wearing his shirt, the collar open and gaping. Niall’s staring at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. Harry hopes for a vivid moment that Niall forgets all about this in the morning but he doubts it. 

\--”but you’ll be the first to know,” Niall promises.

He could tell him now. Be as honest as Niall is being with him. Use the alcohol still coursing through his veins as courage to finally make him do it. 

“I love you,” Harry says on the end of a breath instead. 

It’s a different type of confession, his heart heavy with how much he means it. 

Niall’s face softens, his fingers trailing over Harry’s forehead. They smooth over his eyebrows, brush under the sockets of his eyes and down over his cheeks. Harry watches his careful expression, how his mouth has dropped open and Harry can hear him breathe. The pad of Niall’s thumb pauses on the bow of his lips and it feels like Harry can’t speak. 

“I love you too.”

| arsenic | 

LA is bright in a different way to Vegas. Sundrenched and warm.

It has the trappings of home, the comforting smell of his own sheets, his clothes in the wardrobe, milk in the fridge and Niall’s empty cups of tea scattered over coffee tables and side benches.

Niall's pulled a few strings and got someone in to finish his living room whilst they were in Vegas so when they return, the house smells of paint again and his living room is a bright turquoise. 

“It’s quirky,” Niall had said, dropping his bag on the sofa and appraising his handy-work. 

“It’s _lurid_,” Harry murmurs making Niall offer him a bracing grin. 

Even as Harry stares over the wall in the lilac pre-dawn light. For the first time in a while, he wishes he was in London. Everything feels a bit more real there. More grounded. 

LA is half-home. LA is work and business and yoga at 6am. LA is one boyfriend sharing his bed and the other being a dirty little secret. 

Harry sighs and pushes himself out to his car. He’s not hiding from Niall exactly, but they’ve fallen into a quick routine that brings them in and out of the house in each other’s orbit. They haven’t talked about Vegas but Harry doesn’t think they’re avoiding it either. It’s just another one of those things to add to the list of things-they-don’t-bring-up.

They’ve been busy, anyway. They’d been bustled onto a jet, all four of them too hungover to really speak to each other and went their separate ways once they got back to LA, promises to get in touch before they met again for their next studio session. 

Niall’s been slipping off to golf, to shop, to do god-knows-what whilst Harry’s spent the past few days eating dinner at Ben’s and sweating it out at SoulCycle.

He’s _supposed_ to be writing but he’s not been getting very far. In the blistering lunchtime sun, Harry trawls antique shops, slurping iced coffees until the milk makes his throat ache and he has sunburn across his cheeks that makes him look not so pale and sickly. 

They’re putting down the first of the demos later this week so he should be taking care of himself but he’s not getting very far on the lyrics he’s been working on so he doesn’t really think there’s much point. 

Like right now, Harry’s been staring at a blank page for the past twenty minutes. He doodles the word **b o y f r i e n d** in the corner of the page and snorts to himself. 

Are they even his boyfriends? It seems immature to think like that. Gemma has a boyfriend. Very much a boyfriend that buys her dinner and brings her to the theatre and she’s brought home to introduce to their parents. Louis and Liam have a girlfriend apiece. People that they hold hands with and bring on tour and circle around to shield from the gross underbelly of social media. 

Niall and Zayn and Harry had -- at best -- an agreement. 

It had happened all sort of out of the blue. Harry and Niall coming together early on, all restless energy amongst the madness and Zayn a little bit later. It was nearly easy, inevitable. They spent so much time together anyway that it all just worked out. 

It was a loose secret, no one really sure how to explain what they were to each other. 

No one really asking. 

Harry didn’t mind because he had the best of both worlds. The three of them happy with it that way -- no questions, no lies. 

Maybe if they’d talked about it more back then they wouldn’t be in this mess now. 

Vegas seems only to confirm that to Harry. He and Niall will always have that connection, unique to them in the way that they’ll always there for each other, know how to make room for each other. Make excuses and allowances in an understanding they’ve worked out between themselves over the years. To change how they fit but fit all the same. 

Intimate in a way you can only be with people you let in that close. A closeness that Harry’s sure will always be there. 

Relationship or not. 

It’s unsettling to Harry when he thinks that this type of clarity should be reassuring. It should be a relief, it shouldn’t claw at his throat, shouldn’t crush his chest. 

He finds himself driving up Beverly Hills before he realises it, the sun blazing on his neck through the open window. 

The hotel is busier, the season starting or maybe a big event on in the city. Harry keeps his head down and tries to retrace his steps to the bungalow. It still looks the same -- the pale pastels and the little bushes that only reach his knees -- but Harry can hardly remember stumbling out of here a few days ago. 

He knocks, dread building in his stomach. He’s had too much coffee, the milk cloying at the back of his throat and the caffeine hitting his blood stream. He bounces on the balls of his feet, takes a breath and opens the door. 

It smells musty with smoke inside. The curtains to the two large windows in the sitting room pulled and the dim makes it seems more stifling. Harry edges around the mismatched furniture, his mouth dry. For a brief, heartstopping moment, he worries that Zayn will be in bed with someone else and that this is all a mistake.

But he finds him soft and bleary eyed coming out of the bathroom. “Harry,” he says, smiling at the sight of him. He’s naked, his hair soft over his forehead. He looks skinnier in the dark, all in shadow.

Harry wants to lick at the knobs of his collarbone. Bite at his jaw. “I need to talk to you,” Harry says, his resolve already ebbing away. 

Zayn raises an eyebrow and hoists himself to the edge of his bed, his stomach rolling, the blanket sliding off his hip. 

“You have a nice weekend?” Zayn asks casually, his thumb rubbing at the corner of his mouth. 

“A nice --” Harry starts, shakes his head. 

Zayn grins up at him. Harry steps closer, the thick air enveloping around him. It sits heavy on his shoulders, pushes him down onto the edge of the mattress beside Zayn. 

Maybe they could have a smoke, maybe they could go for a drive --

It’s completely typical that Zayn’s able to just reel him in like that, a hand on the back of his neck and his mouth warm. 

Harry’s too weak for it. He always has been. 

Zayn could get into a strop or get snappish with Niall and Harry, storming off stage or out of the club or off a set and he’d still be able to reel Harry back in first. It was just always the way. 

Niall would remain uncharacteristically stubborn, always jarringly different to that happy-go-lucky, easy-going cardboard cutout he exhibited outwards most of the time. Harry was jealous of it. He still sort of is. 

Harry’s mind drifts away as Zayn kisses down his jaw. His stubble catching against Harry’s neck, the sensitive skin at his pulse point, the dip in his collarbone. Harry lights up with it, arching his back to edge closer.

Part of him knows what he’s doing. He’s here because he can’t be elsewhere, his body itching for a release, itching for how it used to be. Something solid and tangible. Desperate for anything familiar. The ability to hold something in his hands like everything else isn’t falling apart. 

“You wanna fuck?” Zayn asks, his voice husky in his ear. “I want to fuck you. I think you want to fuck.”

Harry nods, desperate, his hands at Zayn’s bare back. He feels out the heat of his skin and then twists in his arms, kneeling up on the mattress. Zayn grins, lying back to look up at him, his hand lazily pulling on his dick as he watches Harry undress. 

“You’ve a tan,” Zayn says, his hand running along Harry’s waistline. “You have a good time in Vegas?” 

Harry ignores him again, planting a hand on the bed as Zayn’s fingers dip lower. “Come on. Thought you were gonna fuck me?”

Zayn laughs, pulling him down beside him onto the bed. “Oh, so now you don’t want to talk about it?”

Harry growls, not allowing him to ruin the moment. He stretches to kiss him instead, shutting him up. Zayn’s skin is hot and he smells like mint shower gel, Harry’s tongue to his jaw. Zayn’s hands scrabble at his hip, dip lower to smooth and squeeze at Harry’s arse cheeks. He pulls them flush and Harry can feel how hard Zayn is already as they grind together, nearly too desperate to wait it out. 

The room is just as stuffy as they rest of the suite and Harry feels too hot, sweat gathering behind his knees and under his arms. Zayn bites his way down Harry’s chest, rolling them until he’s knelt between Harry’s splayed legs, his cock bobbing. He slides his hand up Zayn’s knee, feels out the damp inside of his thigh but Zayn leans back, slowing the pace again, eyes on Harry’s face. 

“Come on,” Harry urges him, his hand catching around Zayn’s wrist. He hoists a leg up, cants his hips in clear invitation. 

“So fucking impatient,” Zayn chides him, dipping down to brush a saliva wet thumb against his arsehole. Harry clenches in anticipation. 

He’s right. Harry feels wound tight with impatience and desperation. He wants to get right to it, to that moment where his mind goes blank and Harry can’t think of anything except the stretch of his arsehole around a cock and the rock of hips. He wants it visceral and real. As if it could hurt. 

Zayn’s expression tells him that he knows exactly what he’s doing. Harry bites his lips, rocks his hips up and when Zayn’s hand comes back, it’s wet with lube. 

“Wanna feel you,” Harry murmurs, his heart beating so fast that he thinks it’s going to choke him. “Fuck, haven’t been fucked in so long -- need to feel you --” 

Zayn huffs an exasperated laugh. “Gimme two secs. Just need to find where the condom went --”

“Leave it,” Harry begs, heart racing. All logical thought has gone out the window. “Please.”

Zayn stills, his hand going limp. Harry chokes on a breath, pushes his hips back against him. “Harry. Are you sure?”

Harry groans in frustration. “Yes. Come on. Fuck sake, of course I am.” He’s panting with the effort not to rut down into the mattress. “It’s just been you.”

“And Niall,” Zayn says quietly, disappearing down the side of the bed. 

Harry blinks his eyes open, shocked at how dark the room is now. It feels like his heart is in his throat, the pound of it taking up more space than Harry has for it. 

It takes a moment to find Zayn, to reach for him, his hands skating over sweat-slick skin.

“Harry,” Zayn says, his voice thin. “I’ve --”

Harry tugs Zayn into his chest, kisses the rest -- _been with other people_ \-- away. He’s being reckless but he doesn’t care. Zayn’s here with him now. Zayn’s _here_. 

Zayn kisses him back, pressing him into the mattress and biting at his mouth. Harry lifts his leg over his hip, fits against him and finally feels the blunt pressure of Zayn’s dick against his hole. 

Zayn twists away, breathing hard. He’s gone all red and Harry pants for it, his hips coming up to chase him. He comes back triumphantly, a condom in his fist. “Found it.”

“Zayn,” Harry says, his voice razor sharp. He can feel something inside him unravelling, slipping away over the edge.

Zayn looms over him, his mouth curling into a gentle smile. “C’mon, Harry --”

“No,” Harry says, childishly. “Come on, you. Zayn --”

Zayn’s eyelashes flutter when he says his name so he says again, knowing that Zayn’s a slut for attention being placed on him. “Zayn --” his voice breaking off into another moan.

Zayn’s hand tightens around the condom and then he’s kneeling back, ripping it open with his teeth. 

Harry groans, his body arching in anticipation. Every second feels too long, his body jerking with every pound of his heart. 

“Don’t be stupid, Haz,” Zayn says quietly and Harry blinks his eyes open, watches as Zayn slides the condom on, his stomach muscles flexing sharply as his hand slides down the shaft of his dick. 

“_Fuck_,” Harry moans, something sharp pricking at his eyes. He closes them, turns his head away but his hand finds Zayn’s wrist, tugging him down until he’s pressing against his chest, groaning quietly as Zayn pushes into him slow and steady. 

It’s counterpoint to everything Harry wants -- reckless abandon, something wild tearing at his gut. Instead, Zayn drags it out, a restraint there that Harry’s long forgotten. 

“Zayn,” Harry moans into his forearm, his nose pressed into the bend of his elbow, the sheets twisted below him. Zayn pounds into him again, folding his legs up tight so Harry feels it every single muscle in his body, feels every heave of Zayn’s chest, the vibrations of each moan and breath he lets out. “Zayn. Zayn, I --”

Zayn’s staring at him when he opens his eyes, his gaze sharp. He has his lip caught in his teeth, his face a mess. 

The rest of the words choke in Harry’s mouth and he can’t say his name any more, taking all of his resolve to just keep breathing. It’s nearly overwhelming, the way Zayn seems to be above him and in him at the same time, his cock splitting him apart until Harry feels so full he could burst.

Zayn’s face has gone red, his eyes dark. “Fuck,” he swears, his head dropping down close to Harry but still too far to kiss. 

Harry glides a palm over his side, up over his ribs. Zayn’s arm shakes where he’s propping himself up and Harry rolls his hips, meeting him in a searing rhythm that makes the bed shake.

“I’m gonna come --” Zayn breathes, the catch in his throat louder than Harry’s near constant moaning that can’t quite seem to stop.

“Wait,” Harry says selfishly, a hand reaching down to squeeze at his own cock. It’s nearly too much, Zayn’s gaze sliding down to watch as he pulls back, his chest red and flushed all the way down to his belly. 

Harry’s legs unfurl, the burn in the muscles making him ache and clench down, chasing it. Zayn lets out a breath, his eyes on where he’s disappearing into Harry’s body and Harry grunts, his fingers squeezing around himself until he’s coming, quick and fast and all over his fist before he can stop himself. 

Zayn makes an ugly sound from the back of his throat, his breathing harsh as he curls over, fingers digging into the top of Harry’s thighs to stop him from unravelling too quick. 

Harry reaches up, his hand covered in his own come and touches Zayn’s face. His body feels like lead, his muscles spasming, weak and heavy but he manages to strain upwards to catch Zayn in a messy kiss, all tongue and thumbs covered with come until Zayn’s slumping forward, pushing until it’s nearly painful into Harry and coming with a near silent cry. 

Harry breathes with him through it, pulling Zayn in close with a hand to his back and his legs twined around his waist. 

“Harry,” Zayn murmurs, mouth slow and voice rough. It sends a thrill down Harry’s spine, settling warm at the base of his stomach each time he says it. “Harry, Harry.”

“Ssh,” Harry hushes him. “S’okay.” He feels the fight drain out of him, the restless buzzing in his bones melting into the mattress as he slowly comes back to himself. 

Zayn is all bones against him, the sharpness of his hip and the point of his elbow beside his ear as he leans up to pull out. Harry gasps wetly, looks away when Zayn looks down at him. 

Zayn rolls away to tie off the condom and Harry takes a reassuring breath, feels his lungs expand, fresh and clear. He has a dawning moment of resolute relief that Zayn wore one and he rubs at his collarbone, the thought jolting at how it was so different to what he _had_ wanted a few moments ago. 

It’s stupid, only hightlights how Zayn isn’t just his anymore. How Harry isn’t that person for Zayn either.

Harry tries to take another breath and it feels like Zayn’s still lying heavy across him instead of beside him.

“We have to stop this,” Harry says, quietly over the growing silence in the room. There’s music playing outside, just audible through the gap in the window and the AC has clicked on, a soft buzz over the steady sound of Zayn’s breathing. 

Harry knows he’s not asleep but Zayn doesn’t speak. 

“Zayn,” Harry says, panic beginning to fester in his gut. “D’you hear me?”

“You know he doesn’t answer his phone when I ring?” Zayn says instead. 

Harry’s heart thumps, sweat cooling tackily on his chest. He brushes his knuckle against his bare hip and realises that they’re not touching anymore. Harry’s not sure when they drew apart and he feels cold for it. 

“Did he change his number?” Zayn asks, still staring at the ceiling. 

Harry searches for the sheet with his other hand, feeling too exposed with no clothes on. 

“Who?” Harry asks but his voice shakes and they both know rightly he knows who Zayn’s talking about. Niall hasn’t mentioned this to him either, hasn’t even told him that Zayn had tried to call him.

Zayn doesn’t answer, instead turning to look at him with an oddly intense look across the bed. There’s shadows under his eyes that Harry hadn’t seen before, the lingering of a bruise on his neck.

“Did who change whose number?” Harry asks, stomach twisting. Every thrum in his body has turned into an ache and he hates himself for it. It’s his own fault, not being able to shut down his thoughts for more than a moment and just enjoy the hot, molten feeling of a good fuck that he was so fucking desperate for to begin with. 

“He doesn’t answer when I ring him,” Zayn says again but Harry’s hardly listening, his head all white noise. “Harry?” 

“I don’t answer either,” Harry mumbles, dragging the sheet up over his body. “I’m on my LA phone. Maybe you haven’t been trying that one?”

Something guilty passes over Zayn’s expression before it hardens. 

“Oh,” Harry chirps, masking all his hurt behind defensive bravado, his mind stuttering behind it. It feels like it’s all sliding into place -- that unease he’s felt bone-deep since this thing restarted between them, that overwhelming sense of guilt that deepens whenever he’s with Niall but thinks of Zayn, the confusion what he’s feeling and the disjoint in trying to predict what the others are feeling too. 

“You’ve never phoned me. You just wait for me to call round and --” Harry doesn’t even know what he’s saying now. He hoists himself to the edge of the bed and starts looking for his clothes and it’s such a sense of deja vu that he sways with it. 

Zayn’s face evens out. The space between them is small but feels very real and permanent to Harry. Zayn opens his mouth, “I don’t -- Harry, where are you going. Wait a minute.”

“Have to go,” Harry bites out, finding a t-shirt on the rug near the door. “I can’t --”

“I don’t need to phone you,” Zayn states, rolling up so he’s kneeling on the bed now too. “I’ve seen you, you’re standing fucking in front of me but I haven’t seen --”

Harry’s not sure what he can’t do or say or what to think. There’s that stopper again, that gag on his words. It’s like that wall built up between Niall as well, seemingly too high for Harry to breach. Harry takes a breath, ignores the thought that maybe it’s him that’s putting up these walls. 

“You can’t even say his fucking name,” Harry spits over his shoulder, feeling a sudden burst of protective anger. 

“Harry,” Zayn says desperately, his fingers scrabbling across the sheets to reach him. “You’re being ridiculous.” 

Harry’s too busy trying to get his boots on to answer him. He jams his left foot inside the right boot and growls to himself, flinging the boot off his toes. 

He’ll go barefoot.

He just needs out. Just like last time. Harry cringes at himself, swallows down the urge to yell or sob or cry.

“I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late,” Harry says, standing up and avoiding Zayn’s eyes. 

“Harry,” Zayn tries again, his fingers sliding over Harry’s elbow. Harry shirks him off, finally jamming his heel into his boot. “Harry, you can’t just keep getting into a strop whenever I say something you don’t like and storming out --”

Harry whirls round to face him. He’s sure they both look ridiculous, Harry half dressed and Zayn wrapped in a silk sheet. “Can’t I?”

\--”and then swaning back in, begging to be fucked as if you hadn’t just ran out --”

Harry splutters to stop him talking. “I _was_ not begging --”

Zayn shakes his head. “Stop it.”

Harry feels himself gape. “Stop _what_?”

“Stop acting as if you’re the loser in this situation!” Zayn snaps, his face going red. “This whole thing is fucked up. You’re not the only one who’s getting hurt. Do you even know what you’re angry about?”

Harry glares at him, something burning at the base of his throat. He can’t even speak to him because if he opens his mouth, he’s scared that nothing will even come out. 

Zayn’s face smooths out, satisfied that he’s right. It’s nearly smug and Harry hates him for still looking so beautiful when being so ugly.

Harry turns on his heel and steps out into the glare of the setting sun. It takes him two attempts to start his car and when he reverses, he sees that the door to the bungalow is still open, the shadow of Zayn’s watching face barely visible.

What the fuck does he know, anyway?

The anger just ramps up the longer he sits in traffic, his teeth chewing through his bottom lip as he stops and starts, rage building in his chest until he’s home. 

Niall’s got his guitar on his knee when Harry stumbles through the front door and he looks so oblivious, so untarnished to everything that Harry’s feeling banged up about. 

“Hey, did you have a good time?” he asks, glancing up at him quickly before looking back down to where he’s forming a G on the fretboard. “Get anything written?”

Harry’s mouth is dry. Niall frowns at him when the moment drags on and Harry hasn’t spoken. His eyes slowly move down his body, taking in Harry’s dishevelled state. He knows he looks a state -- his eyes red, mouth redder. His hair feels wild behind his ears, the t-shirt on his back not even his. 

“I’ve been seeing Zayn.” 

It’s half out of spite that he says it. He wants to hurt Zayn. He wants his _own_ hurt to mean something. To be something other than this ball of barbed wire tugging at all the softness inside his chest. 

It’s so selfish but he needs someone else to catch on it too. It just happens that that means Niall has to feel the brunt of it. 

Niall’s frozen in front of him. He doesn’t move a muscle. 

Harry feels himself hiccup and he’s so much more upset than he thought he was. Tears threaten at the corner of his eye, that sharp sting at the back of his throat. Niall’s just staring and it’s the blank vacant look on his face that makes Harry go for it. “And he wants you to answer your fucking phone.”

Niall’s face twists and it’s suddenly sickening, Harry’s gut clenching. He can’t look. 

His eyes are blurry by the time he gets to the stairs and it makes him trip, his hand coming down hard on the edge of the step to keep himself from going head first. He gasps, the breath knocked out of him. 

“Harry,” Niall calls after him but the concern in his voice makes Harry put one foot in front of the other and get to the top of the stairs. He can’t have Niall be kind right now, can’t look at him in the face or feel his hand gentle on his shoulder. 

Harry blindly pushes his way into his bathroom, sets the shower to a searing heat. The bathroom feels too small for him, his fingers tight around the lip of the sink. He wants to break something so he paces, his hands pushing at solid tile at the far side of the room before he storms back to the shower. 

His t-shirt smells of sweat as he pulls it over his head and it makes Harry’s breath catch. Harry can’t help press his nose to it, chasing the smell of Zayn on it, his fingers twisting until he has cotton in his mouth and on his tongue, his eyes squeezed shut and all the resolve disintegrating inside him.

And finally sobs. 

*

“Harry,” Niall’s voice is terse at the other side of the door. It’s not the first time he’s tried to get into the bedroom tonight, but it’s the first time he’s sounded so angry about it. 

Harry twists in the middle of the bed, the dim room spinning as he listens for Niall to say something else. He can see the shadow of his feet under the gap in the door, the light from the hallway bright in the dark of the room. 

He’d collapsed across the bed after his shower and after locking his door. Then he’d twisted so much in bed, getting all caught up in the duvet that smells of Niall that he had to get up and change the sheets. It had seemed like so much effort at the time but it was nice to press his hot and sore eyes into a clean pillowcase that smelt of a summer meadow and not sort-of-boyfriend-y. 

“Harry,” Niall says again. A sharp rap of his knuckles. “Get up. You have a visitor.”

The way he says it, that hard way he’s speaking is the only reason Harry pulls himself out of vice grip of the duvet. 

It’s late, even though Harry doesn’t know the time he knows it’s late. He had assumed that Niall would get the hint and head for the guest room but the landing light hadn’t went off all night and it had been a least an hour since Niall had last tried to get him to come out. 

There’s something nice smelling in the kitchen and Harry knows that Niall has worked some of his frustrations into making them dinner. He feels another wave of guilt, all his anger from earlier melting down into deep embarrassment. His stomach rumbles treacherously, he hasn’t eaten anything all day. 

It probably pained him to do it, but he knows that Niall will have left a plate for him. Even in his anger, Niall can’t be that cold hearted.

It’s cool in the living room, the doors out to the garden open despite the late hour. Niall’s guitar is abandoned on the end of the sofa and there’s a line of empty emerald bottles across the coffee table. Niall’s sitting at the head of the dining table, a full bottle of Heineken at his elbow. He’s got his ankle pulled up onto his knee, one hand wrapped around it tightly. It’s the one with the tattoo -- Harry wonders if something that small can still be sore. Harry can’t remember, his new tattoos are big monstrosities now, raw and itching as they cover up old ones that no longer hold the meaning they once had.

Niall looks like he’s holding pain in there somewhere. A different type of pain, his back is straight and his gaze turned into a sharp glare.

Harry doesn’t have to ask who the visitor is. 

Zayn’s standing in the doorway, one shoulder against the fresh paint. He’s got a cigarette tucked behind one ear and he’s not even trying to hide how he’s staring at Niall. 

“Well,” Harry says, in lieu of anything else. “Nice night for it.”

Niall snorts but it’s hollow and sours the longer they stay silent. No one seems to know what to say, Harry’s mind growing desolately blank. 

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Zayn says, slowly. 

Harry glances over at Niall, sees the way his gaze narrows. 

“You remember it that well?” Niall asks, taking another mouthful of beer. 

Zayn’s eyes slide over to Harry as he says, “helped him paint it a few weeks ago, didn’t I?” 

The noise Niall lets out nearly sounds wounded. Harry takes a step towards him, not really sure why. 

Zayn shrugs. -- “but the colour must not have worked.”

Harry feels himself flush. 

“Indecisive, isn’t he?” Niall asks rhetorically, his eyeline sliding over to pinpoint on Harry. 

There’s a long pause and Harry’s so thankful that Zayn doesn’t goad him further.

Niall seems to be preparing himself for it but when the silence between them just stretches out further, his shoulders collapse in on themselves.

“Fuck me,” Niall swears, shaking his head. “You two are --” he seems to search for a word and he looks away, rolling the base of the bottle on the wooden table, hardly sounding like he means it --“fucking bastards.”

“What are you doing here?” Harry asks Zayn, turning away from Niall. He can’t look at him curled in on himself like that. “Think you said all you needed to back at th--”

“Didn’t realise I was home?” Niall cuts him off, anger threading into his voice. “Come over so you and Harry could gloat behind my back?”

“What?” Harry asks, his stomach sinking. 

Zayn looks a little startled too. He straightens up off the door jamb. “I never --”

“Maybe laugh at how pathetic I am for pouring my guts out onto paper and working for --” Niall gestures at the sheets of paper spread out over the dinner table --“an album that you don’t even believe in?” Niall says, this time aimed in the direction of Harry. 

It’s spiteful and a little out of blue that this is the direction he’s taking. Harry wonders if this is the bottle finally exploding. If this is actually what he’s most annoyed about. Deep down, there’s something sore in that too, that maybe Niall’s priority _is_ the band.

“Maybe you were plotting for what happens next?” Niall asks Harry out-right now. He can’t seem to meet Harry’s eyes so Harry can’t tell how much he means it. “Already thinking ahead. Thinking for yourself.”

“So what if I’ve thought about it?” Harry says before he can stop himself. “Doesn’t mean that I’m not completely committed to this album and committed to _you_.”

Niall and Zayn both scoff. Harry looks between them, unsure of what’s really happening.

“Harry, you’ve always had your mind on what comes next,” Niall says quietly. “And that’s fine. I just don’t like being made a fool of because I’m not thinking like that yet.”

“You’re _not_,” Harry says, sitting down heavily on the opposite side of the table. “We haven’t been plotting-- We --”

Harry stops himself from saying that they haven’t even spoken about him at all. Not until tonight. It was something they were actively _not_ discussing. Harry looks up at Zayn, tries to find the mirror of the guilt he’s feeling under his expression. 

Niall gives out a mirthless laugh. 

“You could, y’know,” Zayn pipes up. “Think beyond the others for once.”

“Why don’t you fuck off, Zayn,” Niall says, finally looking at him. His eyes are glassy and Harry wonders how close he is to crying -- he himself could easily burst into tears right about now even though he’s all cried out. “Why does everyone have to be so out for themselves all the time? Why can’t thinking about the band as a whole be the best thing to do? Be the best for me and you and all of us?”

Harry’s seen that look before -- Niall’s face is tight, his eyes narrowing. His hand stutters where he’s got it by his side, like he’s itching to do _something_ with them. It’s like being right back in that hotel room in Hong Kong, just after they had all found out that Zayn -- Harry flicks his eyes up and catches Zayn’s wide eyed stare -- maybe wasn’t coming back. 

It’s surreal that this is even happening. 

Back then, Harry hadn’t even been thinking about the future, it had all been such a shock. Niall had been going through the motions and re-packing his suitcase, even though they were staying two more nights, all of his clothes pressed and tightly folded into the bottom of his case when Harry had finally ended up in his room, drunk and desperate and in denial. 

The bed had still been unmade, the shapes of three in the twist of the sheets and dips in the pillows. He had sat on the end of Niall’s bed and watched him tidy up after himself before he finally gave into his exhaustion and fell onto the bed beside Harry. 

They didn’t even properly talk about it for days -- they still haven’t really. That’s the problem. That’s why they’re here now. 

“Well,” Zayn says and Harry hears the raw sadness in it. “Lucky for you but that’s not what was right for everyone. Sometimes you have to be fucking selfish if that’s what’s keeping you going. It’s not my fault none of you wanted to listen.”

“Hey,” Harry interjects. “That’s not fair --”

Zayn swings round to glare at him. “Isn’t it? How many times did we talk about it, Harry? How many times did you listen to me complain and complained right back at me?”

Harry feels the air leave his lungs. “Yeah but --”

\-- but Harry never, ever, thought about leaving. He never actually _needed_ to leave. Harry feels his stomach hollow out and sees the aggravation on Zayn’s face. Neither of them get it and Harry suspects will ever get it. 

Niall looks mutinous. “Why is everything so black and white?” 

He’s finally found his voice and Harry feels himself rear back a bit, shocked at his outburst. Zayn’s face goes blank and Niall pushes on. “How can it be _not the sound for you_ so you’re just out? It’s not my sound,” Niall jabs his finger into the middle of his own chest. “It’s not Harry’s sound. It’s not Liam’s or Louis’s. But we stayed and we didn’t give up.”

“Hey,” Zayn says, sharply. “I left because --”

“I’m not talking about when you left!” Niall rages. 

Harry feels a bit lost for words. He’s seen Niall angry before -- when they came off stage in Amsterdam, when he phones home sometimes, after the physio didn’t work for his knee -- but this is different. Niall’s hand is clenched around his ankle, the other curled in a fist beside his beer. If he thumped it down on the wood, the bottle would bounce off. 

“I’m talking about when you _gave up_. When you stopped trying to write, when you stopped having an opinion. When you walked out of meetings and didn’t turn up to interviews --” Niall takes a deep breath. --“when you stopped including me in these conversations, when you stopped talking to me about it altogether. How many times was I meant to share something with you to only have you walk away, like you couldn’t even be fucking bothered to spare the time to _listen_. Why should I bend over backwards to do the same for you?”

Zayn’s jaw drops open, his mouth pink. Harry doesn’t think he can stomach watching Zayn stutter through this. 

“I didn’t expect _you_ to be the one so arsey about it,” Zayn spits, looking genuinely put out. 

Niall huffs a laugh. “I’m starting to think that we didn’t know each other at all.”

Harry feels that deep down in his chest and he looks away, catches the way Zayn’s clenching his jaw.

“You never said anything to me, Zayn,” Niall says, quieter but it only makes it sound more dangerous. “You can deflect all you want about how the band wasn’t for you and how you hated the music and how much you hated touring. I could see that and I’m sorry that I couldn’t help. You’re right, maybe you had to do the right thing for you --” he stops to take a breath. --“But you came back not really there. Your heart was somewhere else. You had to have been thinking about this, knowing what you were going to do and yet you carried on, you strung it out. You kissed me in that hotel room and walked out that door knowing exactly what you were going to do that day and I don’t know how you expect me to forget that.”

Harry swallows and wants to tear his eyes away but feels like he can’t. Zayn’s face crumples, speechless. Niall closes his eyes, his face twisting before it smoothes out again. 

“And I don’t know how you --” Niall’s eyes stray between them both and Harry wonders it this is directed at him too --“haven’t worked out what I’m actually hurt about.”

He raises the bottle of beer to his lips and he takes a final pull before he gets to his feet, his gait slow, like he’s aged ten years in the last hour. 

“I’m going to bed. Enjoy yourselves.”

“Niall,” Harry says, jumping after him. He manages a hand on his shoulder and Niall turns, his face worn and tired. 

“Just --” he heaves a sigh, finally meets his eye head on. --”not tonight, okay?”

Harry loosens his grip and lets him disappear up the stairs. 

When he turns back to the living room, Zayn’s already gone.

| borrowed light | 

Harry can still remember that feeling of hurt and betrayal as they sat in a humid room in Manila splitting up the parts for that night’s show. They had put it off for as long as they could, Niall not-so-secretly hoping that Zayn would change his mind and come back from the airport, Liam in equal amounts of betrayal and denial, Louis just plain angry.

But as afternoon sped into night, Harry knew that there was no coming back from this.

Harry had prodded at Niall’s thigh, his face unreadable. “You’d be good at that part,” he’d said in hushed tones. They were gathered around a table in catering, blue table cloth slightly askew after they had picked at their dinner. It was the first time all tour -- maybe even the last one, too -- that they all ate together, knees knocking under the trestle table.

It had sort of confirmed the situation to Harry -- the four of them unconsciously banding together like the old days, passing salt to each other and refilling water glasses without the need to ask. 

The tension had came back when they were forced to talk about the next show. All of them avoiding it until it was literally impossible for them to ignore it any longer. The worst of it was how easy some of it was, how it hardly had to be discussed when it came to it because maybe there had always been a Plan B.

Niall had kept his face blank, agreed dully to sing half a verse here, half a verse there, the songs easily broken up to fit four. Harry had reached for his hand, fingers sliding against his wrist before Niall had pulled away. 

They had separated then, Louis going to study lyrics, Liam white-faced under the pressure of having so much more to remember. 

It was another cleave in two, Harry staying close to Niall. Paired off indefinitely. 

“I’m fine,” Niall had brushed off when Harry had reached for him again. 

“Yeah,” Harry had bounced back, bravado covering the tenderness in his chest. “Me too. Everything is going to be fine.”

Harry doesn’t even remember what song it had been now. Just that lingering feeling of desperation to make Niall believe in himself. As if Harry could’ve just turned to Liam and said, “Niall does that bit” with enough conviction in his tone that Niall would be a fool to not believe him. That as long as one of them was happy, then... 

He can’t even remember if Liam had argued back then. He has an image of Liam’s sweaty face during the interval, a bottle of beer in his hand and Harry had wildly thought of them all slipping through his grip. 

But he’s certainly arguing now. 

“_Why?_” Liam asks for the tenth time. Louis’ in the booth, his shirt off and his earphones hanging around his neck. He’s got his hands on his hips and is edging towards Pissed Off Territory if Liam isn’t careful. 

This is quite new -- this recording together business. And they’re not very good at it. 

They’d maybe overlapped when they’d recorded the last album on the road, people slipping in and out of hotel rooms while Harry ran riffs, Niall sitting up at the top of the bed and nodding along with the beat even though he’d heard it fifteen times already that day, Zayn giving him a small, coy smile when Harry had tried to hit those high notes that ended up being Zayn’s anyway. 

Harry wonders if he’d still been into then or if they just got off on the competitiveness. Harry doesn’t like thinking about those good memories like that but his eyes have been opened that he can’t help being a little cynical.

They’d waken Zayn when they could find him on the bus and Niall when they couldn’t. Harry once ate breakfast listening to Liam warm up but that was about the most they spent _together_ working on something if they could help it. 

In the early days, it was their propensity to start messing about and get nothing done but now it’s just because they can’t go five minutes without uselessly bickering.

“Because it sounds _good_,” Julian says for the nth-plus-one time. Liam huffs a breath, waving his notebook about. 

Harry shifts in his seat, moving his weight onto his other hip. He’s too tense, sitting crammed crooked into the seat the farthest away from the rest of them. 

The house had been quiet when he woke up, curled tight on the wrong side of the bed and disorientated from being in the guest room, the mirror opposite of his own but devoid of anything he’s grown used to these past few weeks.

The shock that the house was empty had only slowed him, Harry pausing at the mouth of every room in case for some reason Niall was waiting in his study or the good dining room for a lift to the studio.

He’s been here forty-five minutes -- and he’d been late to begin with -- but Niall still hasn’t shown up.

“Right,” Louis says, opening the door to the booth. “What if we try it like this --”

Julian heaves a sigh, his gaze swivelling across each of them. “What do you think Harry?”

Harry balks, his stomach turning. Louis and Liam turn to look at him -- nearly as if they’re remembering he’s even there. Harry doesn’t like being the deciding vote, the threat of fucking things up further with a single word heavy on his shoulders. “I, um, like it whatever way you like it.”

“Great,” Louis smirks. “Brill input there, gonna be a smash hit after that -- Oh, there he is!”

Harry snaps his eyes up as the door to the studio opens. Niall appears through it, the door propped open on his shoulder. He looks tense, his mouth set in a thin line. 

“Morning --” he says as breezily as he can manage, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. “Stopped for breakfast.”

Harry nearly feels sick with relief that he’s finally appeared. 

“It’s nearly lunchtime,” Louis reminds him but there’s no scolding in it. 

“Brunch then,” Niall says, tonelessly and drops a set of keys onto the sound board. He shoves a paper bag into Julian’s chest. Liam jumps up to help him with the trays of cups he’s balancing in his other hand. 

“Bagels,” Julian says appreciatively, peering into the bag. 

Liam and Louis head his way to start divvying up the food. Liam passes out coffees, stopping short when he realises there isn’t one for Harry. 

Niall’s mouth turns up for a fraction of a second before he goes back to looking blank. When his hands are free, he pushes the sunglasses up onto his head so Harry can finally see his eyes but he keeps them downcast, doesn’t look near Harry at all. He clearly hasn’t slept, his skin pale and eyes red from the little Harry can see of his face.

Niall sinks down onto the edge of the sofa, his back ramrod straight. It leaves a gulf of space between him and Harry, his body angled towards Liam.

One half of Harry doesn’t even want Niall to make eye contact, he feels so utterly unprepared for the look he’ll get off him. The other half of him is roaring at the fact that Niall is _right there_ and he can’t do anything about it. 

“I’ve had,” Niall says stiffly when Liam passes him something from the bag. 

Over Niall’s shoulder, Harry can see Julian watching them. The growing silence in the room is testament to how well they all know each other -- Niall’s subtle cold shoulder echoes like church bells in the small space. 

Liam motions for him to pass the bag to Harry but Niall ducks his head, ignores Liam’s outstretched arm and pretends to fiddle with something on his phone. Harry sees him automatically open Whatsapp before closing it again, his fingers tapping awkwardly across the screen.

“Harry’s on a juice diet,” Louis says cheekily. Harry glances up but Louis’s watching the curl of Niall’s shoulders. 

“Yeah,” Harry says a beat too late. Louis’s eyes flick over to his and roll pointedly. 

“Hey,” Julian says, clapping his hands. “Well how about Niall you hit the booth next --”

Harry thinks that’s a fucking awful idea. Niall’s shoulders slump further but he sets about getting up, shaking off the jacket he’s got on and running a hand through his hair. He looks weary, too tired to even shake up enough enthusiasm for the day. It’s going to be painful when he gets in the booth. 

Harry’s never really felt the nervousness radiate off Niall in this context before, there’s always been an excited buzz washing most of the anxiety away. Niall loves recording. _Lives_ for it. Harry feels a throb of guilt for fucking that up too.

Niall’s eyes glance over to him briefly and Harry offers him a smile but Niall’s gaze snaps away before it really manages to stretch across Harry’s face. Harry knows it’s habit -- today has been a lesson in how long Harry actually spends day-to-day looking at Niall -- and it stings to know that Niall’s purposely not meeting his gaze. 

“Don’t be a wanker,” Louis says good-naturedly, chucking Harry a hastily re-wrapped bagel and lox when Niall slips out of the room and into the booth. 

“Fuck off,” Harry replies out of habit, his defensiveness seeping through his tone. He _has_ been a wanker but Niall isn’t exactly making it easy to make it up to him.

Louis raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push it. He’s got bigger fish to fry, turning towards Liam. “Right,” Louis snaps. “What the fuck is the problem?”

Liam huffs another sigh and waves a notebook at him, loose paper flapping dangerously out of the fan of pages. He has a bagel in his other hand. “You’re not sticking to the lyrics. If we do it _my_ way then it would be a G major --”

Harry ducks away from them as they start to argue in earnest. Sometimes, Harry forgets that Liam even knows what the fuck a G major is. 

Julian is ignoring them too, his earphones snapped over his ears and listening to whatever Niall’s saying. They’ve shut off the noise to the rest of the room so Harry can’t tell what it is but he studies Niall’s face and tries to work it out. 

“Yeah --” Julian’s saying --”exactly Niall, maybe just channel whatever it is you’re feeling into --”

“Turn on the sound,” Harry says, his eyes flicking up to the pane of glass where he can see Niall behind the microphone cover. Niall looks very serious, speaking to Julian through the glass.

\--“could be good.” Julian’s still talking to Niall. “Bring a different tone to it, y’know? It is actually a pretty sad song and --”

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, thumbing through the phone and the demo audio starts playing out of the tinny speaker. “_See_ this is how it’s supposed to be--” and he starts humming the tune along loudly, his eyes on Louis’s slowly reddening face. 

Through the pane of glass, Harry can see Niall’s glum face, his eyebrows curved down into an unhappy frown as he tries to concentrate on whatever Julian’s saying. His eyes flit over to Harry again before darting away and then his shoulders slump further and he turns so his back is to Harry, the cord of the earphones tangling around his bicep. 

He must have asked Julian to keep the sound off because normally they’re not afforded this type of privacy in the studio.

“Let’s hear, Julian,” Harry pipes up again, failing to not sound irritated. He’s listened to Louis all morning running the same verse.

“Whenever you’re ready, Niall,” Julian says into the mic, ignoring Harry outright. 

Harry tries to ignore the prickle in his skin. Through the glass, Harry can make out the tense furl of Niall’s shoulders and knows that he must look the same, all hunched in on himself. He doesn’t know what would come out if Julian asked him to sing today. But it’s fine, because everyone is seemingly ignoring that Harry’s even fucking there.

“But if we do it --” Louis breaks off to _la la la la_ in Liam’s direction, voice rising to cover the tune coming out of Liam’s phone. Julian’s tapping buttons, tweaking at sliders whilst they argue and still Harry can’t hear what Niall’s doing.

“No, no,” Liam says excitedly, a knee on one of the spinny chairs so he starts to rotate slowly. “It’ll sound so fucking good in a stadium, like think of people blasting that back at us and --” Liam’s facing him, slowly twisting back towards Louis as he mimes the roar of a crowd --“like dun-dun-DUN!”

“Will you two fuck up!” Harry snaps, turning his head away from Niall and glaring at them. 

At the mixing desk, Julian groans. Liam’s still slowly spinning on the chair and he looks taken aback, his hands still up miming the crowd. Louis clenches his jaw together, his eyes narrowing. “What’s this got to do with you, anyway?”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Harry asks, anger prickling at the back of his scalp. He gets a flash of Niall and Zayn scoffing in unison last night and he knows he’s been on a short fuse all day, just waiting for a spark. 

“Why the hell does everyone in this band -- in the whole fucking world -- think I’m just going to fuck off at any moment! Do none of you trust me?”

There’s a brief moment of painful silence. Julian looks away, as if it’s none of his business but it is, Harry wants them all to answer him. 

“No,” Louis says, his face creasing so he actually looks more concerned than fucked off. It’s what makes Harry take a breath. “No. I meant me and Liam wrote this --”

Harry’s chest unravels. Over his shoulder, Liam looks a little bewildered at his outburst.

Harry takes another breath, feels ringing in his ears. In the booth, Niall’s turned around again and is staring at him through the glass. Julian’s finger is still on the intercom.

“Oh, fuck off,” he says lamely, turning so none of them can see how his lip is wobbling, and slams his way out of the studio.

He makes it as far as the mens’ room before the fight bleeds out of him. He slumps against the wall beside the hand dryer and catches his red face in the mirror. 

He looks like a completely different person, his face mottled pink, eyes bloodshot. It’s no wonder everyone has been giving him a wide berth all day. 

Harry runs his hand through his hair, tugs on it a little mirroring what he’s just watched Niall do through the pane of glass. 

He wants this _so_ badly, it nearly burns inside him. He wants to get back into the studio, wants to make music. He wants to contribute and to help and to hear his lyrics on Louis’s melodies and Liam’s words on his. 

He doesn’t know why no one can see that. He doesn’t know how Niall of all people wouldn’t believe him. He thought they were all on the same page. 

“They sent me to find you,” Niall says, propping open the door. “Thought it would look worse if I didn’t go.”

Harry lets out a breath, ragged and hollow. Niall steps into the bathroom and lets the door close. He doesn’t lock it but stands up against it so no one could get in if they tried. 

Harry turns, fights to meet his gaze even though his eyes are watering. 

Niall doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes roving over Harry’s face. “When --”

Harry’s chest cleaves in half and he lets out a breath, shoulders slumping into the wall. The bathroom isn’t that big but Niall feels distant at the other side of the room. He could play it off, pretend he doesn’t know what he’s talking about it but Harry thinks he’s done with all the pretending.

“When you went back to London,” Harry says, closing his eyes so he can’t read Niall’s face. “I ran into him and I was so _angry_ but I couldn’t help it -- I wanted to see him. I wanted him to talk to me but --”

Harry shrugs and opens his eyes. He doesn’t know what will make the situation seem better. Niall’s staring at him, his eyes slightly red but otherwise he looks unsurprised. Harry can tell that he’s been thinking it through, trying to work it all out. 

“Before Vegas?” Niall asks, piecing it all together. 

That’s the thing about this being Niall, being his best friend. He knows him just as well as Harry knows himself. 

Harry lets go of another breath. “Yeah --”

Niall snorts softly and shakes his head. He leans back, tips his chin up to the ceiling. For a jarring moment, Harry thinks he’s going to cry but Niall just snorts again, his mouth twisting into a grim smile. 

“I was never jealous,” Niall says, quietly, his eyes still closed. “If we paired off, that was just how it was, wasn’t it? Never thought it was personal. I think that’s why I’m fucking stumped at this.”

“What?” Harry asks, gut bottoming out. 

“All morning I’ve been thinking about what else I don’t know, what else has happened that I have no idea about. What have I missed over the past few weeks, fuck, past few years. I thought I _knew_ \--” Niall opens his eyes, rolls his head so he can look at Harry. “Is it jealousy for you? Did it feel better because it was a secret? That I wasn’t involved?”

Harry doesn’t know what to say. “You were so angry, you didn’t want to talk about it so I couldn’t -- I didn’t bring it up.”

“I thought you were angry, too,” Niall fires back. “We’re all angry. I’m still so fucking furious over it. I don’t know how you _aren’t_.”

“I am!” Harry shouts. “Of course, I am!”

“You fucking slept with him,” Niall shouts back. “I can’t even look at him!”

Harry swallows the lump in his throat. There’s already a tear making a break down his cheek but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking know what he is anymore. He’s just done with the whole thing. 

Niall thumps one of his fists against the door and pushes himself across the room. He’s full of unbridled anger and adrenaline. Harry can see the shake of his fingers when he lifts them to his face. 

“Fuck,” he swears into his hands, turning away from Harry so he can’t see him break. “And do you know, I’m not even that angry with you? I’m trying to muster it up inside me because at least it’s something to focus on, you know? Something I’ve been getting used to feeling the past few weeks. But all I can find is disappointment and hurt and deep down in there I’m hardly even fucking surprised.”

It cuts deeper than Niall means but Harry deserves it. He fights to keep his gaze on Niall, so when he turns, Harry will meet his eyes. 

“I know,” Harry mutters. “I don’t know what I was doing, I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you. I want to say that it felt like some other Harry doing all those things but I know that’s not fair either.”

Niall lets go of a breath and it sounds on the edge of a laugh. 

“Truth is, I wasn’t thinking or I didn’t want to think,” Harry says, pressing his hands to his face. He still hasn’t had time to work through it all for himself yet, either. “I was going mad in that house with no one there and it just felt like oppressive, you know, like this weight in actively taking all this time to _not_ talk about how fucked the band will be and how we’re running this into the ground and how it’s not what was supposed to fucking happen. Nevermind what it means for _us_.”

Niall seems to sag against the wall but Harry keeps going, words tumbling out of his mouth. 

“It seemed so much easier to just do something else. It was like he -- Zayn -- just assumed we were -- maybe it was like we had both left and were on the same page and some of the things he was saying --”

Harry nearly feels breathless, he wipes away furiously at his cheeks. 

“It was like this release, you know, like I didn’t have to think about it, any of it --” Harry says, carving out words from deep down inside. “I just let myself indulge in what he was saying and what he was doing and for a moment, I thought it was what we were supposed to do too, you know? Why the fuck can’t we just do what we want, it’s what everyone fucking expects of us, expects of me.”

Niall’s still curled against the door but Harry knows he’s listening, his fingers twisted in fists by his sides.

“But it _wasn’t_ easy. It wasn’t what I wanted, what _this_ Harry wanted.” Harry slaps his palm against his chest and the sound echoes around the room. “That’s not me and the longer it went on, the harder it was to tell you and it felt more and more fucked up and shameful and I had no fucking idea what was going on, all tangled up in myself and --” Harry’s gasping now, clutching at what he’s trying to say and not knowing what it is at the same time. “It wasn’t jealousy, it was never about keeping that from you. It wasn’t about you at all. Not like that, not like _that_.”

Niall looks up and he looks as cracked and broken as Harry feels. They take a collective breath, Harry looking at Niall and trying to impart all the fucked up feelings and meaning in his words to him without having to explain it. 

“Can we fix this?” Harry asks, voice shot. He longs to touch him, for Niall to gather him up close like he sometimes does but he thinks if he steps away from the sink, his legs won’t hold him up. 

“I don’t know,” Niall answers after a bit.

Harry had been hoping for a different answer. He tries to catch his breath but he’s on the edge of collapse, his ribs and lungs too small in the cavern of his chest. He manages a nod, biting his lip on the sob that’s at the back of his throat.

“Think we just need a bit of time,” Niall murmurs, his face dipping into a frown. “It’s a lot to think about. I just need to think about it.”

Harry nods. Niall can do whatever he wants. If it’ll make any of it better. 

“I can get a hotel.” 

Harry shakes his head, reaching for Niall’s hand. He just wants to touch him, to be touched. “No,” Harry says when Niall slides his hand away. Niall stares at him, daring him to clarify what his objection was to -- Niall staying in a hotel or Niall taking his hand out of his grip.

Harry sighs, his shoulders dropping. “You can stay. I _want_ you to stay. You know that.”

Niall nods tightly, his shoulders still rounded near his ears. 

“Niall,” Harry whispers, stepping closer. Niall doesn’t move but there’s so much tension rolling off him that Harry’s unsure whether to push him.

“I’ll take the guest room,” Niall tells him. “Properly, like.” 

Harry slumps against the wall. “You don’t have to do that, either.” 

Niall glances up at him, his expression open and honest. “I think we’re fucking this up. And until I have space to unfuck it up, I’ll take the guest room.” 

Harry nods slowly. 

Niall stares at him for a moment, his eyes trailing over Harry’s face until it feels like he’s boring right through his skin. He feels the lack of touch keanly, as if it’s pulling away at his skin the longer that there’s space between them. Harry tries not to look as miserable and confused as he feels but it’s only echoed on Niall’s face too. 

It’s the most they’ve talked about them in weeks but they’ve hardly got anywhere, Harry feeling more raw and confused than he was before. 

Niall sighs, eyes closing tiredly. “Come on. We better head back.”

Harry aches at the thought of it. Facing the others is the last thing he wants to do when they’ve probably heard every word of their argument but slipping out is the coward’s way and only raises more questions. 

“Niall,” Harry says, desperately, and he’s begging now, unashamed in it.

Niall’s face breaks and they meet in the middle of the bathroom, Harry falling against Niall’s chest heavier than he expected. They stagger, both of them pushing into the hug and Harry realises that maybe he’s not the only one starved for touch and comfort.

It’s fucked up and Harry hopes with every thread of his being that they can somehow fix it because he’s not sure what he’d do if he’s ruined this altogether.

*

Time slips by quickly after that.

They record and they write. Write and record. 

Niall disappears off to the studio before Harry has a chance to offer him a lift most days. Or he just stays there all night, opening the door to the booth with a slightly wild look in his eye when Harry gets there in the morning with a coffee in each hand.

Harry writes a few half songs with other people, all the melodies going in places wildly different to what he’s singing during the day. He buys a piano for the back room, shoves it into the corner where the paint is still barely dry and tinkers at the keys when he’s bored enough. 

In the middle of the night, he hears Niall play it when he can’t sleep, the music floating up through the open staircase. It twists and turns, something slower and much darker and like Harry’s attempts, just as opposite to the upbeat pop they’re recording during the day. 

It takes all of Harry’s resolve not to climb out of bed and join him. 

It’s destructive. Harry’s not sure if it’s the space that either of them needs because in the end, they’re never actually that far from each other. They bump into each other in the studio, always in each other’s orbit. Harry reaches out to steady him if he wobbles and Niall brushes his arm when he squeezes past. 

Niall gangs in with Louis and Liam, heads bent over notebooks and humming tunes that catch in Harry’s head when he hears them. They go for lunch and play basketball in the carpark and run amok when they get worn out recording all the while leaving Harry to his own devices. Harry buys him coffee and if Niall disappears off to a smoothie place or for ice cream, there’s one for Harry even if it’s actually Julian that passes it to him. 

They write separately. Neither Harry nor Niall talking about what they’ve written and what they decide to bring to the table because Harry’s working out that that’s two very different things. Niall acts indifferent when Harry plays them something, he takes no sides when it’s put to a vote but when he steps behind the glass, Niall watches, his eyes locked on him and listening to every note.

There’s a vulnerability in it that Harry starts to enjoy, finding pleasure in the punishment of being bared open.

Harry wakes to the sound of the piano one morning. It’s still dark out and he’s groggy, his mouth gummy where he’s been sleeping with it open. 

It’s just after four and the plink of the keys reverberate up through the house. He had left Niall at the studio and gone for a drink with a few of Jeff’s friends. He had thought that Niall was already in bed when he got back. It’s his own fault, having given into the habit of leaving his door slightly ajar in case Niall wanted to come back to their bed.

Niall’s stooped over the piano when Harry descends the stairs and doesn’t stop playing, even though he hears Harry coming towards him. 

The house is eery this time of night. Niall hasn’t turned on all the lights so Harry moves through the kitchen quietly, filling a glass of water by the light of the refrigerator. Niall’s still playing by the time he circles back to the living room. 

“Good night?” Niall asks him when Harry comes to a stop behind him. He doesn’t look round but he’s only sitting on half of the bench so Harry takes it as invitation to sit on the other side, his back to the piano. 

“Just went for a drink, it was an early one.” Harry says, his voice scratchy with sleep. “Did you get anywhere in the studio?”

When he left, Liam looked ready to throw in the towel but Louis had wanted to stay on. Harry escaped before he had been dragged into yet another vote. 

Niall lifts a shoulder, presses a key on the piano. “Liam has an idea.”

Harry smiles. “Of course he does.” 

Niall’s mouth curls up and Harry wonders if he’s been drinking too or if he’s just tired. 

“I like your piano,” Niall sighs, pressing three fingers simultaneously down so it’s a ringing noise that echoes through the house. “It’s a good addition to the room.”

“Maybe we should learn to play it properly, then,” Harry says, peering at Niall to try and see more of his face. 

Niall huffs out a little laugh and plinks at a few more keys. “I do think you should repaint this wall though.”

Harry snorts. “Don’t start.”

Harry leans back, his elbow on the wooden slat of the piano so he doesn’t press any of the keys. It doesn’t help him see any more Niall’s shadowed face but it shifts him closer, their arms brushing. 

“I got a realtor today,” Niall says, quietly. He plays a bum note and Harry isn’t sure if it’s on purpose or a coincidence.

Harry lets out a breath and Niall looks up at the sound of it, his face soft and gentle. He looks a little bleary. “I was going to get one anyway. This has nothing to do with us.”

Harry stares at him, fights hard to believe him. It feels like any hope at sorting this out is quickly melting away.

“I just need space,” Niall tells him, slightly breathless. He lifts his hand away from the keys and finds Harry’s. “It’s a good investment anyway. Harry, this was always coming.”

“But --” Harry starts, unsure of what to even say. He _knows_ there’s some sort of truth in it. They’ve all been urged to buy property, to invest their money and to dodge tax and all sorts of bureaucratic shite that Harry hasn’t got time for. He never thought it would be LA. Thought he’d maybe buy a holiday house in Spain, something in Melbourne for his cousins, another house back in his Irish portfolio. 

LA was always Harry’s home. 

But maybe it’s starting to be Niall’s too. He’s melting into the fabric of LA better without any help from Harry, finding friends and buying cars that aren’t going back to London. He’s got Louis now living nearby, a whole host of people to write with.

“You know you can always stay here,” Harry says, his voice thick with unexpected emotion. Niall’s face softens further, his fingers tightening around Harry’s knuckles. Niall had never officially moved in, it was never like the steps in a relationship or a sign of commitment but Harry can’t help think that it’s a step back. 

“I know,” he says, kindly. “I’m gonna figure something out. Probably buy something and do it up, might be here for a while. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

He meant it as a joke but Harry can’t help feeling like they’re already on the clock. They’ll be back on tour soon and then god knows where after that. It feels the longer they stay like this -- no man’s land -- the easier it is for Niall to slip right through his fingers. 

“That’s alright,” Harry says, a beat too late. He twines his fingers with Niall’s and doesn’t let go, even when Niall turns back to the piano. He plays something pretty, or as pretty as he can one handed because Harry’s still clutching at his other hand. 

“You okay?” Harry asks him.

Niall laughs softly, dragging his hand up the keys so they sound out before he pitches himself sideways until he’s pressed against Harry’s shoulder. “Just tired.”

Harry scratches the hair at the nape of Niall’s neck, listens to the subtle change in his breathing and fights hard not to think too much into it. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asks, hesitant in case Niall pushes him away again. They’ve been floating around the subject for days now but Harry knows it’s better once it’s out in the open. He’s hoping maybe it’ll make things make more sense in his own head. 

Niall sighs. “I think I get what Zayn meant.”

Harry’s heart thumps, unsure of what direction Niall’s going with this. 

“It’s getting a bit tedious,” Niall murmurs. “Trying to figure out what songs to use and what to record and who sounds best doing what. I’m tired of all the conversation and the constant push to be _better_, to one up the last one, to rub -- someone’s nose in it. That isn’t what I’m in it for.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, letting out a breath. “I agree.”

Niall pulls back and looks at him, finally. Harry can see how wide his pupils are and wonders where he was before he came home. “Are you just agreeing with me because we’re fighting?”

Harry laughs. “No.”

Niall smiles and goes back to his spot against Harry’s side. Harry lifts an arm so it’s more comfortable, both of them half hugging each other on the stool. He smells of smoke and outside and grass. Harry tucks his nose down and presses it against his neck. 

“I want the album to be the best because we are at _our_ best,” Harry says. “I don’t think we should overthink it, I don’t think we should set out to do anything but produce our best album, something we’re all proud of.”

Niall nods, his hair brushing at Harry’s skin. “Something that works for all of us?”

Harry swallows, hearing the implication. “Something that sounds good and that’s fun to sing and listen to and run around on stage to.”

Niall snorts. “We going to tour it?”

Harry sits back, catches Niall’s eye. “Are we not?”

Niall shrugs and looks away. 

“Niall,” Harry murmurs, reaching for his arm to try and twist him to see his face. It feels a bit hollow but Harry can’t stop the pound of his heart, the anxious jump he makes to Niall backing out on them too. 

“Just tired, you know?” Niall says. “I fucking love tour but...”

“We’ve still got to finish this one first?”

Niall sighs, heavily. “Yeah, exactly.”

Harry stares at him, tries to find something in his face but Niall’s eyes are too glassy, his expression sinking as the last of the alcohol hits him. 

“_Are_ we fighting?” Niall asks quietly. 

Harry stays where he is. “I don’t know.”

Niall’s face crumples into a frown. “This is too hard, do you not think? Too hard to work out.”

Harry feels his stomach sink. “I am sorry, you know.”

Harry squeezes his hand around Niall’s knuckles and hopes he doesn’t pull away, he’s not sure he can say this if he can see Niall’s face. 

“I realised I never said that and I don’t know if you need to hear it because I feel like you should know --” Harry hears Niall swallow, they’re pressed so close. “I’m sorry I never told you that I ran into Zayn again and I’m sorry I never told you that we slept together --” Niall stiffens. --”and I’m sorry for avoiding talking to you about what I was feeling and --” Harry hesitates --”I’m sorry for letting you avoid me too. We should’ve pushed each other to be honest and get it all out and we’re here because I fucked up and everything is fucked and I’m just sorry, okay?”

They’re quiet for a long time, the house silent around them. It heightens everything -- the sound of Niall’s uneven breathing, the thump of Harry’s heart in his ears. 

Niall pulls back, slowly, lifting a hand to Harry’s jaw. “Thank you.”

Niall’s lips are soft against Harry’s, both of them leaning in at the same time. Niall lets out a quiet sound, pressing closer. It’s awkward because of the way they’re sitting twisted on the same piano stool but Harry hooks fingers into Niall’s elbows, sweeps his thumbs over Niall’s cheeks, feels him out and pulls him in because it’s been too long since they’ve felt so close. 

Niall pulls away, gasping for a breath. He tucks his head down, presses his brow into Harry’s neck. 

It feels like a break, something building back between them after all this time stalled on giving each other space. Harry takes a breath, runs his palm down the back of Niall’s arm where it’s curled against him, Niall’s fingers at his hip. 

He could sit like this forever, just sharing the same breath. 

“I’m gonna head to bed,” Niall murmurs, his lips rubbing against Harry’s neck. Harry closes his eyes, revels in the feel of them before he lets Niall slip away, his eyes glassy and intense. 

Harry could go with him, could pull him into his room and thinks that, tonight, Niall would follow. But he doesn’t, doesn’t want to ruin it. He just gives Niall a soft smile. 

“Goodnight.”

*

They’re taking turns at grunting into the microphone when Harry arrives. He shakes out his ponytail before scraping it back again as Julian nods at him beside the window. Liam, Louis and Niall are all squeezed inside the booth on the other side. Liam lifts a hand from where they’re gathered around the microphone. Niall’s got his shirt off -- it must be a good day. 

“Again,” Julian hums into the intercom and he hits record, the red light flashing from the ceiling. 

The beat starts, nothing much to go off before Liam and Louis grunt simultaneously into the microphone. Niall bursts out laughing, turning his head away from them but still catching the microphone so it blasts out of the laptop on Julian’s knee. 

Harry finds himself smiling, he’s missed that laugh. He hopes that Julian keeps it. It was Niall’s idea to record the hustle and bustle of the recording studio, to add it to the album. 

“Just not the arguing,” Liam had bartered before agreeing that it was a sick idea.

The album keeps expanding, every time Niall gets back from recording something he’s breathless with whatever mad idea he and Julian has thought up next. Louis and Liam have filled notebook after notebook of scrawling nonsense that end up to be the best melodies that Harry’s heard in weeks.

“Harry!” Louis shouts. Niall’s still laughing, his cackle crackling over the speakers for a moment. “Get the fuck in here!”

“We’ll keep that bit for the cheeky deluxe version will we?” Julian asks, grinning. 

“Get that explicit sticker Louis’s so desperate for,” Harry snorts but the others can’t hear him, the intercom notched off. 

“Get in here!” Niall says to him, his hand beckoning him in. He sounds delighted over the speakers. It makes Harry smile, the way he doesn’t have to look up to see how happy Niall is. “We need a good grunt.”

Liam sputters out a laugh. “Harry does a good grunt does he?”

“Can’t believe we’re not good enough for you, Niall,” Louis huffs, all of it picking up on the microphone they’re gathered around. Niall laughs again, big and bright but doesn’t answer, his smile filling up the width of his face. 

“Go on in,” Julian says to him, nodding towards the door to the booth. 

It’s warm, the summer sun still blazing through the windows even though it’s nearly dinner time. He’s not sure how long they’ve been at it today, Louis looks sort of wide eyed, like he’s stayed up all night. He probably has -- it wouldn't have been the first time Liam’s caught an hour’s kip on the sofa before getting up again to slog through the lyrics for some of the offshoots. 

The booth smells of them, that musky scent of skin and fresh sweat and Niall’s suncream. He grins at him when Harry squeezes in beside them, all of them circled around the stand. 

“From the top,” Liam orders. “We can pick up some of the harmonies this time, yeah?”

“Sure,” Julian says, his voice tinny and muted from the two pairs of headphones looped around Niall and Louis’s neck. 

The beat starts up again and Louis whacks his chest with his fist, turning to Liam as they both make an over exaggerated grunt. 

“Like that, is it?” Harry snorts. They look so ridiculous. The song is playing, the temporary demo version of Niall’s lyrics over the polished trumpets that Julian has been ranting about all week, sang out into his iPhone when Niall was writing it. Harry recognises it from the clips that Niall had sent him over Whatsapp weeks ago. 

“Too much, it’s never enough,” Liam joins in with Niall’s recording, repeating it like a mantra. Niall’s laughing again, his face flushed. Harry can feel the heat radiating off his sunburn. They haven’t decided which parts they’re singing on this bit yet, just trying to see whoever sounds the best. 

It’s something they’ve been doing more and more in the studio, letting the rigidness of who-wrote-what dissipate into just working hard on every single section to make the best album they possibly can. It’s been more freeing that Harry had expected, leaving Harry happy and excited when he leaves the studio day after day.

Harry knows that Niall’s feeling protective of it, knows that he’s got that nervousness about making it really good, about it _being_ really good, now. Niall’s eyes dart over to him, across the semi circle they’ve got around the microphone. 

Harry leans in, picking up along with Louis on the bridge. Niall looks delighted, humming along before he catches on the harmony, Liam picking up quickly. Harry can feel himself smiling, soaking in their enthusiasm. Niall looks like he’ll probably never stop smiling. It makes something swell up inside him -- that electric buzzing that makes him feel like he’s going to vibrate right out of his skin. Niall makes him feel hyper sometimes, like he wants to shake it all out and do something silly. 

Liam and Louis have turned to each other, pulling faces at each other as they try to push the harmony higher and higher, both of them nearly screeching out the _come on!_ at the end of each line. Harry knows that Julian will start getting impatient with them soon but he’ll never stop them. It feels good to be having fun doing this -- Harry had been daunted by the thoughts of recording the entire album so quickly after. 

After. 

Suddenly, Harry isn’t sure how Zayn would fit in, if he was here. Zayn sprawled out in front of his makeshift studio flashes into his mind and he raises his eyes, catches Niall’s bright grin again. 

Harry pitches his voice higher. “I don’t need my love, you can take it,” Harry sings at Niall. He’s not imagining the way he flushes redder. “I don’t need my heart, you can break, break it.”

“It’s never, never enough,” Harry sings as Liam devolves into a high pitched ad lib. Louis’s stopped singing, bent away from the microphone as he wheezes out a laugh. Harry’s finding it hard to keep a straight face too. Niall looks beside himself, dragging his eyes away from Harry finally to watch as the noise Liam’s making takes up the entire room, his eyes closed as he sings. 

Niall ruins the take with a loud cackle but no one cares, all of them pushing in close to laugh together. Niall’s hand lands on Harry’s bicep, his eyes watering as he giggles. 

“Liam!” Louis crows. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Liam laughs boisterously, pushing forward as if to chest bump Louis. They both let out an exaggerated groan. 

“That’s it!” Niall yelps from beside Harry. He seems loose, his skin hot when he brushes up against Harry. Harry reaches out to steady him at the waist. Niall presses in under his arm, his other hand gripping at the back of Harry’s shirt. “That’s the grunt!”

Liam and Louis look at each before they’re all, all four of them, dissolving into another fit of laughter.

| calamine | 

The flight back to London seems so much longer now that Harry’s not used to it so much. Niall’s quiet the entire way, his expression looking deep in thought when it’s not buried in the jumper he has pillowed against the side of the seat.

“You heading home?” Niall asks him as they’re climbing off. 

The air is chilly, especially compared to what they left in the States. It’s nearly 3am but Harry feels that raw awakeness, where his eyes can’t seem to close even to blink but he feels exhausted all the same. Their plane had been busy -- well as busy as a private jet can be -- the scattered regrouping for the start of tour again. They all filter down the steps before Harry. 

Niall waits for him at the bottom, his head tucked down against the wind that always seems to be around airports. 

“What?” Harry asks, masking a yawn in his elbow. His coat is itchy when he pushes his mouth into it but it’s warm. He hikes the bag over his shoulder up a bit, reaches for the one looped over Niall’s elbow. Harry can spot it in the glint in his eye. He knows Niall didn’t sleep properly on the plane, his shoulders too taut three seats away from him. Harry wonders what he had been thinking. 

Airports are never quiet and it’s over beeping machinery and the rustle of a strong breeze that he turns to look at Niall. 

“Are you coming home?” he asks again, his chin rising up. 

Niall’s bag is slightly heavier than Harry’s, his left shoulder beginning to ache. Harry ignores Niall’s slip of words. “Yeah.”

Niall holds his gaze before he turns away, a smile working at his serious expression.

They’ve managed to get back to London without half of Twitter finding out so they check through customs easily, with tired smiles aimed at bright-eyed airline staff and out into waiting cars. 

Harry doesn’t even pause when he climbs into the back of a Range Rover after Niall. Once the door shuts behind him, Harry realises how loud it’s been outside -- that dull roar of an airport, the wind over such a wide, empty, space compared to the silence in the back of the car.

Niall stares out of the window, his face turned into the shadow as they pull from the curb. The driver is listening to something on the radio, too low for Harry to make out any of the words. It might be news and Harry feels adrift this late at night, being so long away from home.

Niall’s hand twists in his lap, his fingers pulled into a fist before he slowly unfurls them. He places his hand flat against his thigh and then curls them up again. A slow stretch and then repeat. 

Harry makes to reach out and grab his hand but he finds he can’t physically do it. Holding his hand seems so much more forward than carrying his bag. 

Niall turns his head, quirks an eyebrow at the jerk of Harry’s hand. 

They’re over thinking it. Both of them as bad as each other.

Harry huffs a laugh, the silence breaking between them for a moment and looks out the other window.

It doesn’t take long until they’re pulling up outside Niall’s house. The gates beep as they walk through and then again as they pass through the door. Niall hurries on into the kitchen to punch in the code while Harry drops the bags in the hallway and kicks off his shoes. He knows that Willie is probably here so he stays quiet, shuffling through the door where Niall has disappeared. 

“Do you want anything to eat?” Niall asks him in a rough whisper. His voice is jagged from doing the show and then going straight up into the air but Harry knows that by morning it will have worked itself out again. 

“I’m fine,” Harry tells him, ignoring the quelling hunger in his belly. Niall nods and turns away to the fridge. The light inside makes his skin look even more pale. Harry rolls his neck where it aches from being in the same position for eleven hours. 

He wants to stretch out. Wants to lie down. “Come to bed,” he says without really overthinking the implications. 

They’re at Niall’s house. They’re in London. 

This isn’t breaking any of the imaginary and unwritten rules they’ve tangled themselves in. 

Niall’s been expecting it. Anticipating it. Harry thinks he has been too since the car, an excited twinge that’s made him follow Niall home instead of going to his own, empty house. 

Niall’s still obstensively in the spare room back in LA but Harry’s leaving all that there, all that sadness and hurt and whatever the fuck else they’ve managed to mix up between them. 

Niall closes the fridge with a snap. He’s got a bottle of water in the grip of each of his hands and he’s giving Harry a strangely open look. It makes Harry think back to all the other looks that Niall’s given him the past few weeks that he maybe needs to redefine.

Harry holds out his arm, offering him his hand. 

Niall passes him a bottle of water and it’s cool to the touch. Harry sets it on the kitchen counter and holds out his hand again, his fingers trembling but making it clear what the offer is. 

Niall hesitates, his eyes flicking somewhere over Harry’s shoulder before he takes it, his hand a little clammy. 

There’s always a warmth to Niall’s house. Like it’s lived in. Willie bringing an everyday tread to the carpet, the faint hum of the heat and water flowing through the pipes. There’s a half molten candle spilling wax across the corner of the mantelpiece, a coat slung over the bottom of the banister and laundry hanging over the ends of the radiators in the hallway making the entire house smell of ylang ylang. 

Niall’s bedroom is the same as it always is -- a soft, grey duvet cover and three, thick pillows against the headboard. It’s the smaller of the bedrooms, but not by much. His suitcase from tour is propped up in the corner, the door to the half empty wardrobe lying open. He hasn’t unpacked and there’s something transientry about it, how long they’ve been on break but Niall’s not had time to unpack, how he’s been in LA living out of Harry’s things while Harry does his best to fuck everything up.

Harry tugs on his arm to pull him closer. Niall goes with a soft sound, his other hand coming up to settle on Harry’s shoulder. 

“Harry,” Niall says softly, his eyes closing. There’s moonlight flooding through the open blinds and Harry can make out the flutter of his eyelashes, the way his lip is caught in his teeth. 

Harry presses his mouth to Niall’s jaw, kisses up his cheekbone. 

They collapse onto the bed, Niall stretching back so Harry can press his body up against every inch of him, knee to knee, hip to hip. 

He kisses back hungrily, hands sunk into Harry’s hair and keeping him close. It feels like a long time coming, something inside finally breaking. Harry wonders if it’s the stint in beds across the hallway that makes it feel more real. Makes it feel more important. 

They’ve rebuilt something between them and this could make it all topple down but Niall rolls his hips up and Harry groans, his body responding instinctively. It’s been so long since they’ve done this and Harry’s hungry for it, desperate enough to jeopardize that.

Niall answers by clutching him closer, panting against Harry’s neck and it’s sending Harry over the edge, blood coursing through his veins. Harry rolls his head, kisses down the other side of Niall’s jaw. His skin is hot against his tongue, stubble catching against his mouth. 

“I want you,” Niall says, his fingers still tangled in Harry’s hair. He rakes his nails against Harry’s scalp until it sends a shiver down his spine, Harry’s body rolling with the shock of it. 

“Fuck,” Harry says against his neck, biting and sucking at whatever his mouth can reach. Niall groans, arching up against him again and Harry can feel the long line of his cock. They squeeze together, both of them clutching at each other. 

“Can we --” Niall says, panting. He’s so breathless, his skin pinking up that Harry has to press his palms against his cheeks just to feel the heat in them. Niall’s eyes flick up, as if it’s too hard to look at him before they skitter back, so blue and wide and black. “Can we just --”

Harry nods, kissing him again. He gets it. Can they forget for a moment, can they just go back to what they used to be, can they just be Harry and Niall and none of the ugly bullshit that’s kicked up between them. Niall moans into it, his body fitting against Harry’s in ways that feel like ghostly memories. 

Harry wants to give Niall everything he has, wants to let him take what ever he wants. 

“Whatever you want,” Harry breathes it into Niall’s ear, his teeth catching against his jaw again before returning to Niall’s mouth, swallowing his groan. 

“I’m all gross,” Niall warns, breaking away from the kiss. Harry drags his mouth down his jaw again -- he doesn’t care. Harry’s sweaty from the plane too but he strips off his shirt, his hands pulling at Niall’s t-shirt, stretching the material until Niall sits up and Harry can pull it up over his head. 

“Fingers?” Harry asks between kisses. “Mouth? Don’t care how dirty you are --” and Niall finally breaks, huffing a laugh up at the ceiling. 

“You can’t say things like that,” Niall says, grinning down at him. Harry barks a laugh, sits up slightly and it’s like before, all that tension lifting off them as Niall laughs into his mouth.

“I’ll say what I want, when I want,” Harry tells him, ducking down to kiss at Niall’s nose, licking into his mouth again. ‘Did it ruin the mood?”

Harry rolls into him, pointedly and Niall chuckles again, grinding against him. It makes them both a little breathless and Harry kisses him again, feels when Niall’s mouth goes lax, his hands twisting in Harry’s hair. 

“No,” Niall says, when they break away but it’s time slipping by, Harry’s already trailing his lips down over his jaw, mouth moving across his skin. 

Harry gets him out his joggers, the waistband tangled and forgotten by his knees when Harry gets distracted, his mouth sucking shapes into Niall’s quivering stomach, his tongue fitting into the groove of his hip. 

“Fuck,” Niall swears up above him and Harry grunts into his skin, inhales where Niall’s right -- he is sweaty -- but Harry doesn’t care, just drags his mouth and tongue and teeth over the senstiive thin skin of Niall’s hip and belly before can feed the shiny head of his dick into his mouth and nurse it against his tongue. 

Niall bucks at the sensation but Harry curls his fingers against his hip, presses him down against the mattress with one hand braced across his stomach and the other pressed into his thigh, spreading him out wider than the waistband of his trousers really allows, the elastic pulling a red welt into Niall’s shin. 

“Harry,” Niall cries, too loud for there being other people in the house but Harry doesn’t care, sucking on his cock until Niall’s squirming against him, his fingers pressing at his hairline. 

“Ok, ok,” Harry laughs, pulling off to suck in a breath. He can feel tears gathering at the corner of his eye, the wet of his mouth sliding down his skin. Niall rolls his hips again, his fingertips bumping across his face and when Harry looks up, he sees that he’s watching him, his eyes blown wide. “Fuck,” Harry tells him. “You can’t look at me like that.”

Niall grins but it’s slow, like liquid and he looks smug and embarrassed all in one swoop. Harry reaches down to pull off his joggers the rest of the way, rolling onto his back to kick off his own trousers and he needs the moment to catch his breath, to gather his thoughts. 

He’s rock hard but there’s something more heavy settling in his stomach, the urge to gather Niall against him and not let him go. He thinks they could probably rut against each other and that could just do it but Harry wants to hold onto the moment, to touch him in every place he knows and feel every twitch and thrum of his body. 

“Fingers,” Niall finally says, making a decision. Harry rolls over, flexes his hips into the sheets. Niall’s holding a bottle of lube out to him and Harry presses his nose to his hip, reaching up to take it from him without wondering where he got it from. “And then --” Niall says, losing his words when Harry pushes his thighs apart, his mouth to his skin still. 

“Then I’m gonna fuck you,” Harry says into the trembling muscle of his thigh and Niall groans, his body arching up at the thought alone. 

“Yeah,” Niall says, wobbly. “Yeah, then we’ll do that.”

Harry grins into his knee and makes a show of dribbling lube over his fingers but he doesn’t even think that Niall can see, his eyes so glazed over. He splays out when Harry rolls between his knees, bends his waist so Harry can wedge a pillow under his hips but otherwise Harry’s left to his own devices, fingers trailing up Niall’s thigh and behind his balls until he can brush a wet thumb over Niall’s hole, watching how he clenches in anticipation. 

Harry wants to taste him too but he resists, breathes against the delicate skin of Niall’s thigh as he watches his fingers disappear into him. 

Niall drags in an audible breath and out of the corner of his eye, Harry can see him start to pull himself off, his hand squeezing around his dick to keep himself hard. Harry bites at Niall’s thigh, revels in the responding jerk of his knee. 

“Fuck,” Niall babbles on up the bed. “I haven’t -- so long --”

Harry fits in a second finger and Niall groans, his free hand sliding down to grip into his arse and Harry watches the way he clenches his fingers, pulling at himself wider for Harry’s fingers, as if he can convince him to shove more into him just from making more room. It makes Harry laugh and groan all at once, his mouth flooding with saliva at the sight. 

“Jesus,” Harry swears, closing his eyes. “You are -- fuck--”

He leans forward, his wrist aching at the angle but he sucks at Niall’s knuckles, Niall’s fingers twitching off his arse cheek until they’re in Harry’s mouth, pushing and pressing at his tongue. 

They’re going to get tangled, Harry sucking at Niall’s hand under his thigh. It brings his nose right up against the crease of Niall’s groin and it feels all encompassing, as if Niall’s all around him all at once. Harry’s other hand slows, he doesn’t have the room to twist his arm so his knuckles bump against Niall’s rim, his fingertips rubbing at Niall’s insides, the same spot over and over. 

Niall lets out a strangled yelp, his legs twisting and Harry nearly chokes, pulling away in time to see Niall come over his stomach, his face twisted up tight. 

“Fuck, Niall,” Harry murmurs, leaning down, sucking the head of his dick back into his mouth to catch the last spurt of come. 

“Sorr--sorry,” Niall splutters, looking stunned. His whole body twists again, too sensitive and Harry has to pull his fingers out of the clench of Niall’s arse. “Hold on, hold --”

Niall’s mouth opens again, goes lax. Harry’s forgotten how he can get like this, as if he’s ascending to some other fucking planet. He blinks wide, his hand clutching at Harry’s arm so hard that he’ll bruise. 

Harry’s hard enough that even if he could just rut up against Niall he’d be happy but there’s something holding him back, something sharp pulling at him. He wants to fuck him, wants to sink into him and feel that clench on his knuckles around his dick. He wants to be inside him, for Niall to have that too.

Harry waits as long as he dares, drizzling more lube over Niall’s arsehole and trying hard to stave off his own impending orgasm. It’s hard with Niall panting beside his ear, his body bending towards him and away as he pets at his rim, keeping him open and wet and ready.

Niall blinks up at the ceiling for a few more moments before he takes a shaky breath, his hand going back to pull gently on his dick. “Oh, God,” Niall groans, his voice sounding like it’s being dragged up by a higher power.

Harry takes it as permission, his mouth closing over the sticky head of his cock, Niall’s fingers bumping against his lips. They both jerk with it, Harry’s back bowing at feeling the taste of Niall’s come on his tongue. 

Niall’s hand bumps into his head, his fingers slipping over Harry’s face. They gather the tears slipping out of Harry’s eyes, the sweat on his brow, down to feel the line of his own cock through Harry’s cheek. Harry goes easy, lets Niall tip his head slowly back and forth, his mouth loose as Niall rocks gently in and out. It’s only when Harry feels him chub up against the back of his throat does he pull off and kneel up, his lungs sore from breathing so shallowly. 

“You okay?” Niall manages, his words running together. “I’m okay.”

Harry pulls Niall towards him, not able to find words. The pillow rolls under his hip but Harry’s already pressing the dripping head of his dick against Niall’s hole, watching the shape of it as it opens up around him. 

Everything is deliciously wet and warm, Harry’s head going blank with it. Niall gasps, his hand tangling in Harry’s and he tugs, Harry pushing into him bare until they’re slotted up tight, Harry buried right to the hilt. 

“What the fuck,” Harry murmurs, his vision swimming. Niall lets out a breathy little laugh, his knee coming up to hook over Harry’s hip and Harry can’t help but sink into it. 

They’re entirely too close, Harry too hungry for slow and languid but Niall curls around him, his feet and arms and fingers until Harry’s nearly not sure he’ll be able to move. He can’t imagine not being this close, his face snubbed up against Niall’s until they’re sharing the same breath. 

“I’m gonna come,” Harry tells him and his voice is gone, hardly even sounding like himself it’s so low and destroyed. Niall sucks him into a kiss, his mouth moving messily against him. Neither of them have the coordination for it and Harry pulls at Niall’s fingers, twists at them to make sure he’s still there because the rest of his body feels like it’s someone elses, the tingling numbness spreading over his lips and down his spine. 

They roll together, both of them grunting at the effort but it kicks back some of the pressure, makes something spark down Harry’s back. He pushes forward, Niall’s body sucking him in and he groans loudly into Niall’s mouth, all restraint slipping away.

Harry’s hips snap forward and they shove up the bed, Niall under him again. Harry doesn’t think he could stop, the way he’s all wound up and ready to go. He fucks into him, Niall’s body impossibly hot, impossibly tight. Harry can feel the drip of lube down his balls, the sweat of their skin as they slap together soaking into the bed between them. His knees slip, Niall’s thighs tightening so they rock together, neither of them letting each other go far enough to slip out altogether.

Niall’s fingers tug at his hair and pulls away, his eyes bright and glassy as he meets Harry’s gaze. Something unravels in Harry, the snap of a band that’s been keeping him all together. He gasps on a breath, feels the crush of the love and adoration and affection that Harry thinks he’ll always have for Niall swell up until he can hardly keep it inside him anymore, his mouth opening to pant into Niall’s face. He wants him to know this feeling, to vocalise it and tell him and share it between them so it doesn’t feel so enormous to house all by himself. 

Niall meets his gaze and there’s an understanding there, a reflection of himself in Niall that he feels right down to his toes.

“Harry,” Niall breathes, his eyes fluttering closed and he looks completely gone, his face twisted and creased and silent as his cock kicks between them. He clenches down, vice tight and Harry loses it, everything bubbling over in his chest and belly and pelvis and he can’t help being loud, every word and feeling he wants to say coming out in a mush of sound against Niall’s forehead. 

It takes him too long to come back to himself, collapsed over Niall’s body and trapping him against the mattress. He’s aware of his own breathing first, the loud sound of every pant and puff, the quick drag of it against his raw throat. 

He can hear Niall too, can feel the push of his belly with every lungful as they try to catch each other. 

Niall has a hand on Harry’s nape, keeping him tucked close while the other is pressed flat against his chest, feeling every thump of his heart. He turns his head when Harry finally shifts, their noses brushing together. 

Harry watches as Niall smiles, his eyes going soft and Harry feels like he’s being seen himself, like they’re nearly the same person.

“Sorry,” Harry murmurs when he shifts away, pulling out as carefully as he can manage. Niall winces all the same, his entire body still pink and shaky as he stretches out away from him as if he’s still wound up tight, his muscles needing to stretch. Harry can’t tear his eyes away from the glob of come that oozes out after. He drags his hand up his wet dick, shivers violently at the sensation. “We didn’t --”

“I know,” Niall says, on the same page. He takes a deep breath. “It’s fine. I wanted it that way.”

The breath is torn from Harry again, the magnitude of something heavy weighing on him. He feels like he wants to say something profound but his bones are like liquid and he drops down onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. 

“Fuck,” Harry says into the pillow, his voice already giving out. “That was --”

Niall’s palm presses against his cheek for a moment and it’s nearly too warm. “I know,” Niall whispers softly, lilac pre-dawn light catching across his face. 

Harry tries to keep his eyes open, tries to work out the expression on his face. 

“I know.”

*

No matter how bone tired he is, Harry’s still on LA time so he doesn’t stay asleep, waking with the sounds of Willie leaving for work. 

It’s still early enough that it feels like everything is too loud -- the gurgle of the pipes, the groan of his bones as he eases himself onto the toilet, the splash of his piss. He forgoes a shower just yet, padding back through Niall’s bedroom to head towards the kitchen. Niall’s still in bed, his arm splayed out in the space where Harry had been. 

The garden is quiet and grey as Harry looks out the French doors from Niall’s kitchen. It looks cold but Harry doesn’t feel it, the central heating already on in Niall’s house. There’s a magpie on the fence, it’s long tail hanging straight behind it. It’s white side looks bright in the early morning light. 

Harry searches for a second one. 

“Hey,” Niall says quietly from behind him. Harry startles slightly, the kitchen being so quiet.

“Thought you were asleep,” Harry tells him, turning his back on the window. Niall offers him a smile and heads to the sink. Niall’s only half dressed -- a pair of worn boxers and a thin vest that Harry hasn’t seen in years. He looks so much younger with his hair mussed and over his forehead. 

Harry watches as he moves around the kitchen in the half light. The familiarity of his own space woven into his bones and hard to forget as he pulls two glasses from the cupboard and fills them with water. There’s an ease here that doesn’t quite work in LA. Harry wonders if he prefers it here. If he’s going to come back here after tour after all.

Niall flashes him a smile but Harry can see remnants of that serious face from last night, from the plane, from LA. 

“You okay?” Harry asks, thinking of last night.

Last night, only hours ago. 

It was affirmation and realisation all at once. It’s hard to admit, the jumble of thoughts racing through his mind catching sharply in chest and in his throat. When he closes his eyes, he can see Niall’s expression, the softness of his brow, the warm finality in it.

Harry snaps his eyes open, looks over to where Niall still looks boneless. Niall glances up, tilts his head to the side. The sun is starting to come in through the window more and it paints the cupboard behind Niall’s head gold.

Harry reaches for him and Niall smiles, closing his eyes briefly as if he’s steeling himself or settling himself or something else. His fingers tangle with Harry’s first and he tows himself in, coming to a stop between Harry’s knees, his mouth soft as he brushes a kiss against Harry’s.

Harry pulls him close, shares their warmth. It’s nice this time of morning, the rest of the house silent around them except for the glug of the heating system. They haven’t had this when they were in LA -- Harry finds it hard to believe it was only a few days ago -- but something has lifted from over them, everything settling into place. 

“I think, maybe, we need to take a break.”

Niall ducks his head into Harry’s shoulder, breathing roughly against his ear. Harry closes his eyes, presses his nose into Niall’s collar. It smells clean, floral like fabric softener but just stale enough that Harry knows the shirt has been sitting in a drawer for the past few months. 

“The band?”

Niall sucks in a breath. “We can’t let it get this bad. We don’t want -- I don’t want to ruin all the good things we’ve got. I don’t want to end up resenting it and everyone that’s got anything to do with it.”

“You’ll not ruin it --” Harry starts to protest but he feels himself agreeing already. They are tired. Already on a brittle edge of pushing each other too far. 

“I don’t want to hate it,” Niall says, honesty bleeding through his words. Harry presses his hands into Niall’s side, keeps him from moving away. “I don’t know what I would do if we ended up hating it all.”

“We wouldn’t,” Harry says. 

They’ll never hate music. Some of their stuff, yeah. But Harry knows that something has been ignited in them now that they’ll never be able to tamp down. They’ll never hate writing or making it. Sure, it’s hard sometimes. It’s hard to make a song work, it’s hard to move your fingers across a piano and make it sound like something you’ve never heard before. 

But Harry knows that they’ll both _love_ it for longer than either of them will really know. 

He’s worried about starting to hate _them_.

“Harry,” Niall says, leaning back. He his hands to either side of Harry’s cheeks, his palms warm and soft and he tips Harry’s head back slowly to meet his eye.

“I know,” Harry murmurs, his mouth feeling too big sandwiched between Niall’s hands. “Have you told anyone else?” 

Niall smoothes his thumb under Harry’s mouth, pressing it to the seam of his lips. 

“Going to maybe bring it up this weekend,” Niall says and then takes a deep breath, the same steadying one from before. “Think it’s best before we start Europe properly. So we’re all on the same page? What do you think?”

“If you want,” Harry murmurs, his voice muffled from his hands. “I’ll have your back.”

Niall’s body sags into him, the tightness in his shoulders unravelling as he presses in to kiss Harry on the mouth. 

Harry pulls him close, his heart still hammering. “I always will, you know that.”

Niall doesn’t say anything, curling closer into Harry’s embrace. It’s comforting, familiar in a way that Harry had nearly forgotten. 

Last night was -- last night was too big for Harry to wrap his head around yet. It feels big and overwhelming to have this Niall back within his grasp but there’s something else, something settling right at the base of his stomach where he’s been knotted for weeks and weeks. Something drawing to a close. 

Niall sighs, stepping away from him. For the moment, Niall doesn’t seem to want to bring it up. “Come on, it’s still arse o’clock in the morning.”

Harry laughs, his fingers tangling in Niall’s as he tugs him off the barstool, too selfish to refuse.

*

“Why didn’t we stop at one that had a Marks and Spencers?” Harry complains, stepping out onto the tarmac and glancing around the service station car park. 

The building looks dilapidated, like it hasn’t had a fresh lick of paint in a while and the carpark is oddly desserted for the time of day. 

It’s been nice being back home, despite how short the trip has been. Harry has to admit they haven’t done much, squeezing in dinner with family here and there. It’s been nice to have a head-shower from LA, to have Niall back in bed beside him again and something familiar to be working on as they head back into the tour.

Niall sighs behind him, closing his door with his foot. Harry is glad that they’re back to driving _his_ cars rather than Harry’s with the way he keeps doing that. “Because I’m not listening to you complain about how you have to piss the entire way to Cardiff.”

Harry rolls his eyes but follows him across the carpark towards the loos anyway. They’re a little dirty and grimy in the sunshine but not the worst Harry’s ever pissed in. Niall laughs at him when he disappears into a cubicle instead of pissing in a urinal and Harry can feel the flutter of excitement that he’s starting to only associate with tour, of spending hours together until every little thing is funny, is maddening. Hysterical. 

Harry lets it swell up against his ribs. Thank, _fuck_. The last leg ended at such a low that Harry was wondering if they’d lost that magic altogether. 

Niall slopes off towards the shop, leaving Harry to kick about the car park until he gets back. He uses the time to stretch his legs, pull his arms up over his head to get the feeling back into his fingers. They had had a slow morning, revelling in the comfort of home before they embark on tour again -- Harry had done a load of washing and Niall had lay in his bed until they had to go. They had packed in the same bag, neither of them caring what went where.

Niall’s on the phone when he comes back, a plastic bag hooked over his wrist and his phone jammed under his ear. 

“Alright, alright,” Niall says jovially. “Fuck off now, bye --” and then to Harry in explanation --”Louis. Panicking that neither of us are there yet.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I told him that we’d be there before soundcheck.”

“He doesn’t have your UK number,” Niall answers, his voice muffled from where he’s rooting about the plastic bag looking for his car keys. 

“Who else exactly would be texting him to tell him about soundcheck? All those other people in the band?”

“Here,” Niall says, completely ignoring his gripe and throwing a packet of sandwiches over the bonnet of the car. 

Harry looks down at the slightly squashed chicken salad and pulls a face. “It’s no salmon on rye.”

“Well, it’ll have to fucking do,” Niall says brightly, walking round to the back of the car and pulling up the boot door. There’s enough space for them both to sit and Harry smiles, feeling the sun on his face. 

“It’s only an hour ‘til we get there, anyway,” Harry concedes, sitting beside him and ripping open the packet of sandwiches. 

They eat quietly, both of them swapping their second sandwich without having to really ask. Across the carpark, a minivan full of kids get out and start playing on a set of dilapidated looking swings. They fight, four of them shouting and pinching and squabbling until two manage to get a swing each, the others cajoled into pushing them.

“Zayn texted me,” Niall murmurs, staring down at the limp curl of his sandwich. 

Harry glances over, squints at him in the sun. He has to force himself to swallow, his throat feeling tight. 

“Oh,” Harry says back, clearing his throat. He’s not quite sure what to say. He hasn’t spoken to him since Zayn had left his house that night in LA, everything else slotting higher on his list of priorities. It still stings, Harry all twisted up about it more than he was when they were in Hong Kong.

Niall smiles wryly, looking out across the carpark so he’s not meeting Harry’s gaze. “I didn’t reply.”

“Do you want to?”

Niall glances over, shrugging roughly. There’s no real defensiveness about it and Harry’s so relieved that they seem to be still being honest with each other that it makes him sag into the side of the car. He doesn’t mind if Niall wants to speak to him, it just confirms to Harry how much he doesn’t want to cross that bridge yet. 

“Not right now.”

Harry nods, dropping the rest of the sandwich into the packet. Niall offers him a thin smile and leans over on himself, his elbow against his knee and his cheek in his palm. 

Harry wonders what they must look like, just staring at each other across the width of the boot of the car. The sun catches the bright bits in Niall’s hair and Harry likes the way he doesn’t look as exhausted as he had in LA, the smile that’s working its way up to his eyes. 

“This is it, isn’t it?” Harry asks, breaking their silence. 

They’re on the cusp of something. Harry’s been so focused on getting to this side of the break, to starting back to normality on tour, using it as a target in his head to make him push through all the mess in LA. 

And now they’re here. About to start the next bit, the last bit. A new chapter. 

There’s a few bits and pieces that still needs to be finished on the album but Harry knows he already loves it. He appreciates every single minute that he put into it, every moment that the four of them stood in that sweaty studio in LA, every note and word they parsed between them. Every argument, every long stilted silence between him and Niall that finally broke when they were singing in harmony. 

It’s something they’ve worked hard for. Something that doesn’t sound like Harry or Niall or Liam or Louis but sounds just like _them_.

Niall cocks his head, his mouth turning up a little in understanding. “This is it,” Niall agrees and he sounds so assured that Harry breaks a little bit. 

They’ve been circling this moment for the past few days, months if he’s honest with himself. 

Harry’s never really believed in actual, real heartbreak. In the past, he’s just took it on the chin and got on with it. He had the odd wallow after a bad break up, the wobble when Zayn left that he’s still working through. 

This maybe _feels_ like what heartbreak should feel like. Something heavy, pressing down on his ribs and filling his chest. Something that’s been growing and expanding all spring and a long time coming. 

It’s not a shock. There’s just a finality to it that Harry’s been burying deep down with all the other shit he’s not really ready to face yet. 

There’s still the tour. An entire tour and the album he’s really fucking proud of to promote. The shows in Cardiff and then on to Europe. There’s the rest of the year and then a break that stretches out for long enough that both excites him and terrifies him.

And he’ll have Niall for all that because he knows that their friendship is never going away. If anything, he feels it more strongly. That bond that will never break, how they’ll always slot together, always fit in some shape or form. 

“Hey,” Harry says, drawing Niall into the circle of his arms. Niall smiles a bit watery at him and it’s easy for Harry to say, “I love you, y’know.”

Niall lets out a laugh and it soothes the rough patches in Harry’s gut. Not completely but makes a start on them anyway. Like Niall’s sanded it down a little bit but there’s a little left rough, like the hook side of velcro. 

Leaving it easier for Harry to catch onto the next one and maybe, this time, let it stick.

“Me too,” Niall whispers to him, his expression going determined. “Always will.”

Harry can hear the rush of cars on the motorway beyond them, cackles of the children on the swings back to being best friends, the rumble of an engine turning over. Harry presses his nose into Niall’s collar, feeling suddenly close to crying. 

“It’s alright,” Harry finds himself murmuring, his voice caught at his throat. It’s mostly for his own benefit but Niall hums in agreement, the vibration of it rolling up Harry’s throat. He says again to make it feel a bit more real. “It’s alright.”

“Yeah,” Niall says softly into his ear, his hands threading through his hair. When Harry goes to pull back, Niall holds him tighter. Harry laughs, something bittersweet gilding the jaggy bits in his chest. Over his shoulder, the sun comes out again. 

“We’ll be alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the subtitles are Farrow and Ball colours.


End file.
